Spiral Knights - Electron vs Graviton bombs

Electron vs Graviton bombs

33 replies [Last post]

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 01:20

Quotefanboy

So I was reading up on the Graviton and the Electron, and I was unsure which one was better.
Now, aside from the damage elemental/shadow traits, I was reading this:
Electron cannot grab large enemies such as lumbers, lichen colonies, and trojans.

Now, what I'm curious is, can the graviton? I'd use the bomb for utility, and I understand the electron can shock, but I am thinking that, since I'm going to combo with my shivermist, the shock would end up to be more hurtful then helpful. I just wanted to know these things.

Are their suctions and blowback the same or does one have a better suction radius / pushback?
Can the graviton grab those large enemies of which the electron can't?
Is the shock stacked with my freeze really bad, or can it actually be good?

and that's about it.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 01:37

Plaguerider

Electron can grab lumbers,

Electron can grab lumbers, colonies and such, the lower paths can't, but I currently have a 4* electron and I did notice that after upgrading it does indeed grab larger enemies. +1 to electron imo, because shock is perhaps the most effective status again imo, it both helps you attack and hinders the enemy, while dealing small to moderate damage, and while everyone is pulled towards the center of the vortex, if even one gets shocked, they all chain the shock.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 02:02

Milkman

1) They are exactly the same

1) They are exactly the same except that the electron series can inflict shock (which prevents the monsters from being flung out at the end)

2) I'm not sure how you are planning to kill stuff using just the shivermist and vortex as neither are major damage dealers. However the shock will break the monsters of being frozen so the two bombs will likely not work that well together.

3) See this thread for the most effective tactics to using the Vortex bombs: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/21959

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 02:10

Milkman

SECRETS

Double posts are painful... so are other forms of DP's

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 02:10

Quotefanboy

Well my stradegy was going to

Well my stradegy was going to be shiver, vortex, shiver, sword charge.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 07:10

Culture

Shock is going to break your

Shock is going to break your freeze. So the monsters will be frozen, then the shock will break it then they'll get frozen again if the freezing vapor is still there. If the vapor isn't still there then they'll continue as usual. From a mechanics viewpoint it isn't a huge issue, attacking the monsters is still pretty safe. You just aren't going to get the most out of your freeze since the shock will eventually end it prematurely.

To max out your DPS it is better to just vortex then sword charge, then repeat. Just be sure that when you do the vortex there are plenty of monsters to draw in so that they don't get flung out.

Dropping Shivermist before a Vortex is going to reduce the mobs sucked in because the freeze will keep stragglers from wandering into the suction. Also, with max CTR on both, you aren't going to have time to drop a Shivermist after the Vortex is placed. The Vortex is going to explode just before the vapor takes effect. Really need two bombers to do the Shiver+Vortex together so that the freeze prevents flung mobs. (Which is also why Glacius pairs perfectly with vortexes, you have time to sword charge and freeze the mobs to prevent the fling.)

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 07:23

Moogzor

I'd heard the Electron has a

I'd heard the Electron has a weaker knockback but, can't really confirm that myself

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 07:24

Plaguerider

Don't use that combination,

Don't use that combination, honestly the best status combos are as follows,
shock and fire, for a great DoT perspective
stun and freeze, stun first, freeze second, and survivors broken out of your freeze lock will be to slow to react and will be easily taken out.
Shock is honestly best on its own, unless you want to use the above stated Dot system (which is still not very effective. But I must continue why shock proves to be the most useful.
It is easy to spread, it causes a stagger that stops enemies and interrupts their attack. And I realize that this game is about defeating enemies, but improving your survivabilty by staggering your opponent imho is much more worthwhile any day, the longer you live, the more damage you can do.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 09:39

No-Thanks

Zelda

blah i also read shock having "less knockback" "oh thanks devs, that gives the bomb its purpose"

bulls! i tryed the bomb recently its in no way better than gravi and the shock rate, which isnt 100%, makes it even worse to predict the enemies

the dmg is pure trash compared to the nitronome, the crowd control is suicidal*, those r FUN weaps, they dont have any use(as in there are weapons, which are both safer and deal more dmg)

and pls dont rely on the shock, but keep in mind, that the enemies COULD get shocked messing up ur calculations and eventually getting u hit or stuck or w.e

*E:kinda crowd out of control rofl

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 09:56

Plaguerider

@No-Thanks Try the higher

@No-Thanks
Try the higher star version. The lower obviously has a smaller radius, and If you plant one, trap some enemies, and charge another, the charge will be done before the vortex is over, and if you overlap the bomb, your enemies will forever be stuck in the vortex until they die. And if you cannot accomplish this, you're doing it wrong. And the chance for shock is incredibly high imo, I get it every time, and all of the enemies bunched up get shocked as a result because it chains to any enemy touching it.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 09:59

#10

Nicoya-Kitty

@no-thanks the vortex bombs

@no-thanks the vortex bombs are support bombs, not DPS bombs. They work reasonably well when paired with a swordie or gunner who can release a charge attack on the tightly grouped wad of monsters at the center of the vortex. They're somewhat less useful for a solo bomber, unless you use them to hoover up a group of enemies into the blast radius of a nitronome or something, but given the movement penalty when charging it's a bit of a risky strategy.

I've got both a Graviton and Electron charge, and while I haven't noticed much difference in the knockback after the detonation, I also haven't put many miles on either given that I spend most of my time doing solo runs; and they're both pretty weak in their 3* versions so I've been waiting to upgrade them before I make them a regular feature in my loadouts.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 10:18

#11

Nievem

They may be more support

They may be more support oriented, but they are fine to do damage and kill enemies relatively safely (you are in danger while getting close to drop the bomb though), just cleared a final wave on arena (neutral damage), and many waves at jelly palace (increased damage) with my graviton vortex, it sucks for resistant monsters though, ie, with a butterfly around, you'll keep healing the damage by sucking it close to the monsters, and it will be the last one to die regardless. The more enemies the better, once there are 4 or so left you may want to drop a final one and switch to your main weapons though, because you'll do more damage to you/team than to the monsters.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 10:46

#12

Plaguerider

I think what Nicoya and

I think what Nicoya and Nievem are stating, is that they're not designed as a boom/done style more of a 'round-em-up' bomb. I simply think that they could be described as a lasso effect. Honestly I can see that maybe these bombs could have been designed with no damage at all and perhaps had a series of status effects only, but the idea is that you rount them up, and then use something like a Triglav charged attack(very small hit radius). I do this and it works really well.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 10:59

#13

No-Thanks

Zelda

"And if you cannot accomplish this, you're doing it wrong."

i could do that with a gravi, but it would never be possible to suck a big bunch of monsters consecutively without getting hit
idk if the 5* shock rate would contribute to me not getting hit, but i really wouldnt wana spend any more CE on electron series, the dmg and walk speed simply doesnt make up for it, my nitro is superior

#10 i used to use em with RSS and with swords and no im not that stupid to use it with a nitrnome

#11

"because you'll do more damage to you/team than to the monsters."

well said, melord!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
im still curious about the 5* shock rate, if thers even a 10% chance for an enemy to fly away, itd be a disastrous bomb

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:02

#14

Halifix

Chaining vortexes is a good

Chaining vortexes is a good way of pulling mobs together, letting swordies charge their attacks in the meantime. I find my electron vortex works great with polaris, as both give shock chance, and you can get guaranteed safe AoE damage with polaris. If you're soloing, I wouldn't suggest vortex except with Polaris or Stagger Storm. The Sealed Sword lines may also work with it. The more enemies that are in a vortex, the less likely they will be flung out. If you aren't soloing, don't use Nitronome. Your teammates won't be able to see anything, and won't be happy unless they don't mind not dealing any damage.

The wiki page is inaccurate; the higher level bombs do pull in large enemies. But I can't log in to the wiki for some reason >_>

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:03

#15

Nicoya-Kitty

@Nievem You'd actually do

@Nievem You'd actually do better trying to take down a crowd with a Stagger Storm than with an Electron Vortex. They'll both do roughly the same damage upon detonation, but the SS won't scatter the monsters out of range or into your face and doesn't have the movement penalty when charging; and yet nobody would try to count on the SS as a DPS bomb.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:21

#16

Fraxur

So I did some testing and

So I did some testing and noticed 3 things:
1) Electron Charge cannot grab large enemies like Giant Lichen Colony, Lumbers and Trojans.
2) Electron Bomb can grab Giant Lichen Colony (T2), Lumbers (T2), but not Trojans (T3). I don't know if this applies to other tiers because I mostly do RJP (Giant Lichen Colony+Lumbers) and sometimes FSC (Trojans)
3) Electron Vortex can grab every enemy (not sure about Vanaduke and JK, obviously not the Twins). I only have Electron Bomb right now but I saw a friend of mine use Vortex and it sucked in a Trojan (FSC).

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:31

#17

Trying

I was the one that wrote in

I was the one that wrote in the eletron charge page that is did not suck in lichen colonies, giant lichen colonies, trojans, and lumbers. Someone that obviously has not tried out the bomb decided to copy and paste that to the other pages. I have changed it to be accurate again.

The electron vortex can suck in anything nonstationary including bosses like JK

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:34

#18

Plaguerider

@No-thanks If your style is

@No-thanks
If your style is to use the nitro and not swords for dps, and we've made it a point that these vortex bombs are not for the kill but for the grouping, then what is the issue? o.O
I find the bomb incredibly useful for my style.
If you really do overlap the bounries on the bombs, you'll find them much more effective, but again, this is soley for the ones beyond 3*. The 3* radius is too small and will bring you too close to enemies and they will be able to hit you. Otherwise while using the 3* learn to heard them into a crowd and skirt around dropping the bomb. Try the four corners method. Walk to a corner, place it just so the edges or the radius touches the edge and wait for the mob to show up, then walk along. ALSO. Don't use them against wolvers, but that's kinda obvious.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:40

#19

Trying

You can use the vortex

You can use the vortex against wolvers. It's great in combination with the BTB charge attack since all the shots will hit the wolvers inside and you can stay a safe distance away. If the wolvers do the bite attack they rubberband back into the vortex after the attack finishes.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:43

#20

No-Thanks

Zelda

the issue is the high risk of getting hit while charging the bomb or while walking with a charged bomb on ur head

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 12:22

#21

Trying

That's why you aggro all the

That's why you aggro all the monsters and run with your regular speed, then charge and place the bomb so that they will walk into the bomb. They dont have to be in the vortex radius when you place the bomb down. CTR would be nice to have so that you can place the bomb and get out of the way faster.

Also you would not use the bomb on monsters with long ranged attacks(devilites and retrods) or things that quickly charge at you (greavers)

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 12:44

#22

No-Thanks

Zelda

so why not aggro them and run with regular speed and simply attack the little bunch of monsters, uve gathered, right away..instead of putting a graviton 1st, which costs an extra weapon slot

E: btw heres 2 old threads for gravi fans

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/13755
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/21959

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 14:57

#23

Nievem

I use graviton vortex which

I use graviton vortex which doesnt shock, and destroyed an arena last wave (obviously aint good versus turrets), using just the vortex, I got max ctr so I can place a vortex right next to the other one so the enemies never get the chance to leave, using vortex as dps is tricky since enemies can hit you if you try to chain the vortexes (you have to get close after all). And if you try to use them on few monsters/with inexperienced players then youll probably kill yourself/your team instead when they fly through the map and hit someone on the face, in those cases its better to wait a bit before the next one and create some distance, or switch to another weapon if there are few monsters anyway.

Of course it is situational, I wouldn't bring both vortexes as my only weapons :P The more enemies and smaller the space the better they become since theyll give you room to run to, trap the mob, and damage them at the same time.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 15:07

#24

Culture

Hmm

Initially, I had some difficulty setting the vortexes safely. With some practice though it is quite trivial, you adjust to the different walking speed. I don't even consider it dangerous any more.

If you just aggro and attack them then it is only the leading edge of the group which will receive the initial swipe of the sword charge. With the vortex, almost all the gathered mobs should receive all the damage from the entire sword charge. This is only considering groups of 9+ monsters though. If there are only three monsters, for example, then dropping a vortex is quite unnecessary it should be easy enough to just kill them. With more though, even through aggro, are they tight enough to take the entire sword charge? The vortex trivializes the process. The suction lasts for a very long time so even after the initial blast it'll continue sucking in any monsters from a wide area that wander by while you prime the sword charge.

Just a note, the 5* bomb has a much larger suction area even though its blast ring is the same size as the 4* bomb. The 5* also lasts much longer, giving one plenty of time to do a sword charge even without CTR UVs or trinkets.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 15:46

#25

Velcro

I've read a lot of people

I've read a lot of people suggesting that the 'fling effect' of the Vortex is too annoying and that it's hard to place it.

To the first 'fling effect' comments:

1. If you get about 6 or more enemies in the Vortex (either one) then they won't get flung out. They will get stuck on each other and just stay clumped. In my experience.

2. The beauty of the Electron's shock chance is the multiplicity. If the chance is, say, 25%. And you have 4 enemies in the Vortex. Then you get a 25% chance, 4 times. That's roughly a 42% chance to shock the enemies, because they're so close if one gets shocked the others will. It might not be exactly as described here, but the basic mechanics are the same.

3. In my opinion, the Brandish series, namely Voltedge and Glacius, are the best weapons to pair with Vortex. Not only does the Shock and Freeze help to prevent the 'fling' but their charge attack is suited beautifully for it. The charge attack has a fast release, includes a step forward, and counts as the first hit in your combo if you follow up with two strikes. (This means you'll go Charge attack -> 2nd swing -> 3rd swing) And that 3rd swing interrupts most enemies. Furthermore the shock and initial charge hit help to stop attacks as well.

To the second placement comments:

1. Vortex users should love anyone with AoA, VT, or any other AoE damage weapon. Not just because AoE = awesome with Vortex, but if you don't touch the mobs that spawn and let them damage the mobs with their AoE junk. Then the mobs WILL NOT bother you. After allies attract sufficient aggro, the mobs won't bat an eyelash at you. I've literally walked about 2-3 enemies deep into their crowd while charging a bomb and planted it without the enemies so much as turning to look at me.

2. If you abuse the enemy's AI then you are a lot safer. Take zombies for instance, they won't start their leap or fire unless you've stopped moving perpendicularly to their facing direction. So, charge your Vortex, stop for a moment, they'll start charging their breath or leap. If it's breath merely walk to the left or right infront of them while avoiding the AoE of it and place a bomb. If it's leap merely walk around and place it behind them. Other enemies have this sort of abuse-able AI as well. Most ranged attacks I've found to use this.

3. If you don't want to get close to the enemies and have already attracted aggro, guess what? The enemies are brainless. Drop your Vortex and back up. Enemies will mindlessly walk into the Vortex FOR you and then hey, smack em a bit for being idiots.

I hope this sways any negative opinions.

Oh, and in my opinion, Electron is better than Graviton. And yes, I agree that these bombs could have the damage removed completely and would still be amazing.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 16:11

#26

Epicyarn

What would i do?

Herp Derp FALCO PAAAUAAAUAUNCHHHHHH! the baddies :P

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 17:44

#27

Michaelb

Graviton Bombs can grab large

Graviton Bombs can grab large enemies, and not kats.

Electron Bombs cannot grab large enemies, but can grab kats.

that's the verdict :D

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 18:09

#28

Trying

Electron bombs can grab large

Electron bombs can grab large enemies just not the 3* version. I can prove it in game if you want. I can even grab JK or snarby for you if you want.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 18:40

#29

Velcro

@michaelb

That is so terribly wrong. Both Vortexes have the same suction mechanism from my experience.

Kats can fly out of either Vortex. As long as it doesn't explode and shock them.

Anything that moves fast enough can get out of either Vortex.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 19:10

#30

No-Thanks

Zelda

#29 im glad u clarify the kat issue, cuz i never noticed anything unusual, but i did read that they dont get sucked in and i never bothered to test it..kats literally fly together to a big group on their own lol

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 19:21

#31

Nievem

it sucks them once they stop

it sucks them once they stop flying

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 20:52

#32

Plaguerider

They can 'fly' out of the

They can 'fly' out of the vortex. I've seen it. thankfully they are the only ones.

Wed, 09/28/2011 - 21:22

#33

Velcro

Enemies I have personally

Enemies I have personally seen get out of Vortex are Kats, Greavers, and Tier 3 Wolvers. Trojans might be able to if they charge.

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Electron vs Graviton bombs