I'm thinking shock or fire.
I already have an Electron Charge that I could upgrade to 4 star, but its range seems kinda small on the Wiki, and Tier 3 Wolvers can supposedly dig out of the vortex. I don't plan on making any status bomb higher than 4 stars because I'm penny-pinching my only 1000 CE left for a new helmet.
Please provide some suggestions for me to use. I could really appreciate them since I unlocked Tier 3 a while ago but only decided to try out its first half today!
The range definitely increases as you upgrade haze-style bombs toward 5-star. And because area scales up quadratically with radius, the area covered increases really dramatically. The difference between 4-star and 5-star is large. Upgrading an item from 4-star to 5-star costs 78,000 crowns plus materials. (This is based on CE at 6000; adjust accordingly.) Even if you have to save up, you should do it eventually. Now about the bombs:
I'd say Ash of Agni and Shivermist Buster are pretty tied up for the best.
Stagger storm if probably the worst... Enemy attacks are hard to predict and it does VERY little useful damage.
Source(s): Watching a teamie attempt to be a bomber in JK using only the Stagger bomb. And me getting hit repeatedly by stunned Lumbers.
I'll add that I think which bomb is "best" somewhat depends on your level of experience. Obviously, different situations can make a bomb less (or more) useful, such as trying to use a shivermist on frost themed monsters is pretty useless, but you experience also matters. Shivermist is great for rooms/situations that you aren't familiar with. You can get a chance to look around and decide how to approach the room/monsters. I used to use my shivermist a lot, but now that I know what is going to happen most of the time, I find that I'm almost always using my ash of agni or my dark briar barrage instead. When the twins were released, however, I was back to using my shivermist a lot for quite a few runs through it.
For your first bomb, a shivermist is a very good choice.
For pvp, voltaic tempest
for pve, shivermist
They serve different purposes, so they are the best at different things:
Best Crowd Control - Shiver
Best Damage - Ash
Best Damage in FSC - Voltaic
Best Debuff - Venom
Best at messing up attack animations - Stagger
Above is the order, in my opinion, of most useful... another way to measure bestist.
Well, to be fair, you're not really suppose to use hazes as damaging bombs( in my opinion at least.). You're suppose to use them as support. But yeah, Stun isn't what it's cracked up to be at times, in my opinion it makes monsters more unpredictable.
I agree with the rest though, Ash and Shiver are probably the best.(With Ash giving a health drain, and Shiver for slowing down dudes.)
Bopp does bring up a good point with the Shivermist though, it can probably hurt more than help them.(I remember freezing locking one of guys surrounded by monsters...yeah, I imagine he wasn't too happy about it...) I feel it requires practice from both you and your team. So...Ash of Agni is probably one of the more "party-friendly" bombs.
I have AoA, Shiver, and Voltaic, so I'm not the best informed about Stagger and VV. Out of the three, I'd say that Shiver is only really useful in FSC. Usually teammates break the ice very quickly, and in most of Clockworks, you don't see enough of a large group for a true need to freeze (Reconstruction zone with a Shiver can be fun, or if you herd fiends together). I don't like Voltaic very much, since if I want crowd control, I'd use Shiver, and if I want damage, I'd use AoA. Shock does weird things to some mobs and reduces pushback. I use AoA the most out of the three bombs, since I'm more of a damage person than a slow-and-steady kinda fighter.
Though not strictly a status bomb, I love using Electron Vortex with people who knows how to take advantage of it. I had a team for JK where I'd lay down the bomb and the other three would release charges--easily one of the fastest JK runs I've ever done.
Each situation calls for a different bomb, also, using only ONE bomb is kinda like not going full potential on them, at least for us bombers, logically some bomb combos are just freaking obsene be it on PvE or PvP, whenever i see a 4* or 5* bomber spamming JUST one bomb i feelz teh sadz for a bit, but then i join with a good match for that bomb and everything goes sexy :D.
Trying make this topic 20% cooler, i would suggest taking bomb combos into account, of course this wouldnt apply to non bomber knights, unless they have CTR VH in each of their bombs of course...
I was about to make a list of the combos i enjoy but just realized i love em all! haha, cept for those toy bombs :P (but i accept its mostly because im not very keen on them, never was attracted to use them), too bad most players hate nitronome, i just LOVE to play with it, thats the main reason it stays out of my loadout (which used to be 3bomb1sword)... One thing is, the vortex series, i have mixed feelings about it, seems like that bomb is a jackofalltrades, it doesnt excels at anything, it doesnt do crowd control like Shiver, it even falls behind Voltaic for that matter specially since mobs can attack while in it (they do too in Shiver but it takes a really novice knight to not think in taking 1 second to go to the monsters back and hit it), while Volt cancels most of their attacks, also, it cancels its effect on all the mob at once, leaving a mob ready to strike while reciving not that much great of damage... meh, im trying hard not to hate on it but, until i give it an honest shot cant help it and doing just that its not high in my priorities list.
I have a 4* freeze bomb, a 4* shock bomb and a 4* graviton bomb, out of those, my favorite for arena is teh shock one, especially room 3 last wave.
the shock tick may be half/a third of what a fire tick is, but it's an AOE tick, so if say 8 mecha knights are clustered together in stratum 4 they would suffer 3*24-30=72-90 damage each if they were on fire, but they would suffer 3*8*15-18=360-432 damage each if they were shocked.
realistically however, the range of it is small enough that generally in a big cluster each mob is within the area of 2 to 5 others, so it balances out.
Unless you go duo with someone else using a vortex, then every mob sucked in takes the shock damage from each other, and die REALLY fast.
If you have CTR max for bombs you could get a voltaic tempest (or lower * of it's line) alongside your upgraded electron vortex, you would be able to set up a very nice kill-them-all combo
I think I'm the only one around here that likes Venom Veiler >_<
I will support Lusty's comment about combining the effect (fire/shock+poison in arena = LOL) but I'd like to point out that while VV by itself is basically useless when you solo, it's usefulness grows exponentially with the team size, ie if there are only 2 people in an arena, and the bomber is spamming venom veilerm the swordsman won't reach the poisoned mobs quickly enough to take advantage of the effect. With 3 people slashing away on the mobs OTOH, and with some "help" from the menders, the bunch should die away pretty fast.
Damage debuff helps a lot, too, if you happen to be with careless team mates.
If you're using swords primaly though, DON'T make the VV, you're much better off with SB or AoA.
For a 5 star bomb, I would suggest Shivermist. Although it's an enemy specific bomb that is amazing in FSC and against fiends and mediocre elsewhere (generally better to learn monster patterns instead). It's also the first bomb I leveled to 5.
However, in most cases, I carry around an Ash of Agni. Easy, constant dps, without requiring me to be near an enemy. However, fire bombs don't require 5* and are more useful than freeze at low levels.
Also, Stagger Storm is amazing... but only if you're willing to deal with the glitches with stun. It shuts down alpha wolvers, mecha knights, and phantoms HARD. However, it does allow monsters to bypass their animation and immediately deal damage, depending on the monster. It's more the fault of the game for having never coded stun against monsters correctly.
Consider Stagger Storm and vortexes as a secondary bomb. Ash and Shiver should be your primary.
The order I got my maxed bombs in was (I believe):
Shivermist Buster
Ash of Agni
Nitronome
Stagger Storm
Venom Veiler
Electron Vortex
Radiant Sun Shards
Graviton Vortex (intended, 4*)
Voltaic Tempest (intended, 4*, but looking for uv)
Does the map allow kiting? If so, Ash of Agni + Voltaic Tempest (w/ optional Venom Veiler).
Does the map consist of narrow passages or timed traps which prohibit kiting? If so, Shivermist Buster.
Are your enemies consist of primarily Wolvers? If so, Stagger Storm.
Are your enemies consist of primarily Kats? If so, Voltaic Tempest or one of the gravity bombs (Graviton or Electron Vortex).
Are your enemies consist of primarily Devilites? If so, Shivermist Buster.
The benefit of multiple status bombs is that you won't be as restricted by the theme of the map. If you just bring Shivermist Buster, you are screwed very badly when the maps are ice themed. It is easier to look at the landscape of the maps, the types of enemy and then finally the theme of the maps, to decide what bombs to bring.
Hey,
Just a few comments on the Vortex. Its range sucks, terribly until 5*. It practically isn't even a bomb until 5*, when it shines. The moment you upgrade to the 5* version you will be able to realize a whole new world of possibilities with the bomb.
Also @Lusty: Here's a reason to like it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKjKrWnpbKY. Granted I had CTR on both the swords and bomb in that video, it 'is' possible with the brandish series with just the CTR med you get from maxed heat level.
The shock mist bomb combos extremely well with the Vortex series for two reason:
- The shock itself is most useful against tightly clustered crowds
- If another ally laid down the shock bomb then enemies will be aggro'd to them if you haven't touched them yet. This is beautiful since with the aggro away from you, you can walk into the crowds of enemies without them even batting an eyelash and lay a Vortex 2 to 3 mobs deep into their group
Another thing people have touched on is how it's much better in parties. Though it only really needs 2 knights, including yourself to reach optimal effectiveness. This is because if both knights charge attack the Vortex clump from opposite sides, the knockback either attack does will cancel out with the other knight's knockback. Thus you essentially 'squish' the enemies in the Vortex.
Really nice video mate, i enjoyed watching it a lot :).
As i said, i would need to dedicate some time to the vortex in order to see if i can feel the groove with it or just regard it as another toy bomb, that video helps tho, but it also made me realize a couple of critical conditions for the vortex to be as effective as it shows, first you need to take a lot of time in finding just the right spot for it to get as many mobs into it, while its ok for spawning waves it really makes the bomber take some time to plant and REplant again, maybe its just your playstyle, but, at least as a bomber, i charge, plant, charge, plant, and so on, the time it take me to charge its the time it takes me to find a good spot to plant it, also it appears that it needs a fast charging sword (be it by armor or by UVs) in order to make it count, i MIGHT be wrong on that tho.
Still, i dont hate on it, im sure its far better than those toy bombs, to be honest, i dont see it becoming my favorite but if i had to choose between making a combo of my bombs with another bomber's vortex or toy bombs, i would gladly choose the vortex, specially for that nifty fact about voltaic+vortex :).
Also, one question, when the vortex ends and the mob is expanded, how far does it goes? now that i remember this fact, this may also be another negative thing about it, specially with players not familiar with our bombs :/.
@Stav duuuuude, you are not alone, i LOVE mixing my "hawtness" with a little of poison hehe, and for that i mean Ash+Venom, not bad and yeah, as others have said, if we can kite, we can poison/burn em.
Personally i would LOVE to do some runs with mixed bombers, supposing every bomber in the party is using Mad/Volcanic Demo suits or bombs with CTR VH we would all plant 1 type of bomb then switch to another type of bomb and plant, rinse and repeat:
1) Voltaic, Venom.
2) Shiver/Vortex/Ash -depending on the properties of the mob
3) Vortex, Nitronome/Stagger.
4) Gunner/Swordie just in case.
Maybe im totally tripping balls and this might be a horrible party, but i sure as hell would love to see if it works, after all, the game is just too linear with swordies going around all over the place :P.
This should probably be move to arsenal.
As for the best...I guess that's a matter of opinion.
I like the freezing series, since it can slow down hoards and have my guild mates set up for some charge attacks. But the Shock and fire series are really good too, but I feel something that can slow a hoard down is much better than just inflicting some damage here and there.
Although, I would really consider upgrading them to 5* in the future, that extra range does help a lot.(Obviously it doesn't have to be now, but its recommended that you do it asap.)