I got bored with using swords, and using guns gave me a couple of headaches. So I'm gonna spice up my life by changing to a Bomber!!
I need everyone's advice on this. I plan to go for more damage, less status. And I only have 3 slots for weps. What are the best types of bombs to bring along, and what is the best type of armor? Full Mad? Full Volcanic? Or a hybrid of both?? 8D
Much appreciated
WizeOne
-Blast Bomb Line are for Damage. If you want to Effectively Bomb, get Nitronome.
(Not Recommended in Groups, as their Knock-back can Fling Enemies into Teammates.)
-Graviton & Elextron Vortex are for Crowd Control & will make you Move Noticeably Slower when Charging, similar to Charging an Irontech Bomb.
(Recommended for Groups, as it Pulls Enemies Together, allowing for you or your Teammates to Unleash a Charge Attack on them, preferably a Brandish Line Attack.)
-Ash of Agni is Good for Damage, Shivermist Buster Good for Crowd Control, Voltaic Tempest for a little Bit of Both, Venom Veiler for Weakening Enemies, & Stagger Storm for some Crowd Control.
(Recommended for Groups in some Occasions.)
-Dark Briar Barrage is basically a Piercing Version of Nitronome. Perfect for Gremlins, Beasts, & Fiends.
(Recommended for Groups, as it doesn't have Knock-Back.)
-Radiant Sun Shards is the only Viable Crystal Bomb Upgrade, because it does Piercing & Elemental Damage & Charges a LOT Faster than the Rock Salt Bomb Line.
(Some-What Recommended for Groups, as it doesn't have Knockback.)
For more Info look at the Bombing Guide:
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Bombing_Guide
Or the Elite Bomber Thread:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/4347
EDIT:
-Most People go for the Owlite Shield Line, as it Defends against Fire & Shock, which Interrupts Charges & Elemental Damage, Great Against Gun Puppies.
-Other Bombers, such as myself, prefer the Plate Shield Line, as the Shield Bump it provides can allow you to plant a Charge in the Middle of an Enemy Mob & Safely Push them away from you, successfully "Kiting" them.
EDIT2:
-Full Volcanic Set tends to be the "Safest" Demo Set, as it provides a High Charge Time Reduction & Fire Resistance.
-Bombastic Demo Set is considered the Worst Demo Set Line, as it only Provides a Bomb Damage Bonus & no Charge Time Reduction. CTR is Essential for Bombers.
-Mad Bomber Set is for those who are Truly Great at Blowing things up & being able to Doge EVERY Attack Possible. It has a Very High Charge Time Reduction(Giving you a Maximum! Rating if your Bomb is Lvl10)& a Very High Damage Bonus at the Cost of being Weak to almost every Status in the Game.
-The "Jack of all Trades" Set is the Mad Bomber Suit combined with the Volcanic Demo Helm. This makes the Wearer Weak to all the Mad Bomber Statuses, but Fire, & Maintains a Very High CTR & Medium Damage Bonus. This is Recommended for Most Bombers.
-The Mercurial Demo Set is only Available for those who can Overcome the Deadly Shadow Lairs or happen to have a lot of Crowns in their Pocket. Despite being a Bombastic Demo Set in Disguise, the Speed Boost is very Helpful for Charging Bombs that Slow you down(Irontech, Graviton, etc)Each Piece has a Low Damage & Speed Bonus & a High Resistance against Shock. If you have Very High CTR UVs on your Bombs, this is the Best Set you can get.
Ironskullkid summed it up.
For armor, it really depends what you are doing and what you want. If you run FSC, full Volcanic is recommended for the fire resist. For more general use, hybrid with 2 boom trinkets allow you to reach CTR Max and damage Max.
For shields, there is no bomber specific shield. For the classic choice, it's : Owlite for Elemental, Crest for Shadow, Ironmight for piercing (not BTS because you don't use swords, if you do use BTS). Refer to shield-specific threads/guides for more infos.
A last thing : status bomb can pair well (especially fire + shock and freeze + poison combos) as you can apply 2 at the same time without problem. Note that fire + shock can do HUGE damage over time and outdps pure damage bombs. On the other hand, freeze+poison is very good for support in FSC.
Ok! I know what I have to get now... Thanks Ironskullkid!..... LOL and thanks again Fradow, gunning didn't really sit well with me. XD
Oh yeah, if I equip a shock and fire bomb, plus a blast bomb in the third slot, will that be ok for solo runs?
I forgot to Mention that the Shock Status REDUCES Knock-Back, so if you're in a Group & you Shock them, feel free to drop a Few Nitros on them.
Fire & Shock will Stack, so yes, it is a Great Combo. (Keep in mind that Fire Does Normal Damage for every Tick & Shock does Elemental.)
So, if you Use AoA & VT, & then Drop Nitros, you will be Effectively Bombing, Solo or Group.
It's viable, but I wouldn't take a nitro as third slot. If you want to have a 100% uptime of shock+fire, you will not really have the time to use nitro, and you'll have problem with turrets.
On the other hand to stay full bomber, you could take a RSS to snipe towers (or a gun/sword if you don't mind using something else).
Ironskullkid, slight imprecision, fire does fire damage, for which every mob has a different resistance. It appears to be normal, but it's not (else it would be the same damage on every mob), see the damage table of ash of agni on wiki for more info.
use mad bomber helm with volcanic demo suit. The volc. demo helm had med ctr whereas the suit only has low.
@Fradow/Iron:
Shock damage is elemental, Fire damage is normal. Not sure why they made fire normal, but hey.
@OP:
Safe FSC:
Full Volcanic + E-Boom trinkies
Shiver, RSS, DBB, [optional]
Badass, deathy FSC:
Volc/Mad + E-Boom Trinkies
This gives max/max on +10 bombs
Same weapons. Gray Owlite for both.
Outside of FSC?
Personally, I like using full Mad Bomber, an E-Boom and E-Slash and BTS.
This gives max/max on +10 bombs and VH sword damage. You should pretty much always be carrying a utility sword with you, but this layout will give you the ability to really pound in on things if/when you do use it, rather than feeling like you're using Proto. A bombers utility sword should pretty much always be a status causing one (or Acheron, in somewhere like a Dstrux Zone) so that it's doubley useful for you, allowing you to switch off to your bombs and have the enemies already ailed.
Things to consider with that setup is that it's an extremely aggressive build, allowing you to deal massive bomb and sword damage, and act very quickly while you're at it, however it's unfunnily fragile, with overall crap defence and -VH resistances. Expect any status to severely hurt and last north of 9 seconds. Using it in FSC is viable (Gray Owlite is basically not optionally, however) but if you do catch fire, you'll burn like oil on paper.
Also, for solo runs, it's worthwhile keeping a vortex on you. It's pretty much the safe-mode weapon of the game.
@Darkbrady no fire is not normal. If it was, it would deal the same damage to every mob, and be reduced by normal defense on knights. But it's not, thus I conclude that it only appears as normal (probably for convenience).
See the Ash of Agni damage table on the wiki, it goes from 51 for Devilites, Gremlins and Kats to 97 for Ices cubes in strata 6. That's a factor of 2.
For FSC, I would probably take venom veiler instead of DBB. Sadly DBB doesn't knockdown zombies down there, and venom veiler makes a great combo with shiver. That's a little more support.
Oh, and a good shield suggestion please. =)