Out of curiousity Echoez what equipment/bombs do you use on a normal run

Do you guys bomb in lockdown too?

@Embodien: Between gate maps and arsenal stations there's little need to stick to a regular loadout when you can swap gear for any given depth. That being said for a "general" loadout;

Volc Demo Helm
Mad Bomber Suit
Elite Boom Module x2
Ash of Agni / Voltaic Tempest (Depending on stratum)
Radiant Sun Shards
Dark Briar Barrage / Nitronome (Depending on whether or not I'm soloing)
Electron Vortex / Venom Veiler / (Depending on stratum)

The only 'main' bomb I don't really shift into my generally fluid loadout is Shivermist, since honestly there are so few occassions where it will increase party dps more than any of the other status bombs, or vortex. In fact outside of FSC & IMF and their respective Shadow Lair equivilents I don't really use Shiver at all anymore.

As for Lockdown, I primarily just go generic Skolver in Lockdown. That being said although I haven't done it lately due to remaking a lot of my gear with better UVs and such, one of my favoured stategies is to go Skolver until we have the majority of the capture points and then swap to a bombing load out and control said points. This is a lot more effective on 3 point maps than 5 though, on the latter unless I'm spawn camping like a complete [Explicitive here] I stay Skolver. I think what needs to be stressed here though is bombing is a lot more effective when you're well co-ordinated with your team, so bombing in LD depends on a lot on the team and communication going on.

So new update brings us all sorts of new changes, namely the blast radius of bombs is 'filled in' and a large variety of enemies have been nerfed. Although there's a lot of things to discuss listing off the most notable;

• Bombs are now even more visually disruptive and lag generating for those on poor computers, so expect even more people to complain about bombs lagging them out.
• Zombies and Retrodes got massively nerfed and now there is essentially no need to take Nitro into FSC at all, you can literally walk into a crowd of zombies and drop RSS as and when you please. Baiting them into swiping onto an RSS has never been easier. You can do the same with Retrodes although you obviously won't do as much damage.
• Alpha Wolvers can no longer teleport mid-attack so no longer will kiting Beast arenas with Ash of Agni be completely suicidal. Similarly they no long track you when attacking so DBB is now definitively better than Nitro for dealing with them.
• Gremlin dodge animation has a longer cooldown, meaning you can now viably use RSS to dps them should you want to (DBB is still superior for this though).

I'm all for RSS being pure elemental although I find I don't mind much either way, as long as it remains useful against greavers and undead they can do whatever with it. I'm starting to think I may prefer is RSS was left element/pierce and simply given a 5* upgrade, taht would surely solve any issues the bomb currently has with dps. Or they could just add a dedicated pure elemental dps bomb to make dealing with Constructs easier without spamming Ash.

Don't quote me on it but last I checked poison is a 10% defense reduction and 50% damage, so you're halving the damage output of enemies against your team which makes VV defensively superior to shiver in some situations. Throughout FSC itself you'll probably using vortex + vv the most since it devastates most rooms and everyone in the party will be overjoyed at the ability to use X favourite charge attack against the gathered and weakened mobs. Learn the positions of where things spawn at party buttons, then drop VV followed by a Vortex and hit the button. In areas where lots of mobs spawn through various triggers like the main room in D25 and on the left path in D26 I tend to have the team spawn all of them for some crazy hilarious vortex shennanigans, although if you're not comfortable using vortex against huge groups of mobs yet you don't have to take that approach.

Against Vana himself, Shiver > VV > Shiver x2 > VV > Shiver x2 > continue. In my experience you only need to reapply VV inebwteen every 2 Shivers to mantain poison, alternating constantly will often result in vana getting free of the ice. I'm sure you can probably do 3 shivers between veilers in fact, but I haven't really tested it extensively yet.

What Sword should I now get other than the CIV. The Graviton+Brandish=Maximun Carnage! Should I get a brandish and which one?

Should I keep my Tempered Calibur? Also, Would Arch be useful for FSC because my Fsc set INCLUDES Gravi. And if I got a Electron, Would Glac be a useful thing for FSc if I got a SMB?

I'll keep my Freezing.

just glad I'm not alone in the dislike of the new fuse, not that it seems to matter. But on my part, my experience with it improved slightly as far as lag issues were concerned, but that's not going to do anything for the extra obscurance it causes. Every bomb is now shivermist bad

it was already clear enough before, especially when they made red rings to differentiate. With this, if you even set up a damage bomb against the gremlin bombers, you now have something that makes it a bit harder to see where their mini bombs land.

Glac
Shivermist Buster(For support with boss)
VV
G-Vortex

Would this be okay?

You should really consider at least ONE piercing weapon...

And the nerf made alpha's weaker. Also, on the previous page, some of my loadouts have DBB.

You did actually read his post right? He's providing support during the vana fight via Shiver and Venom Veiler, he isn't going to be dpsing Vanaduke at any point during his pierce-weak stages, so why would he need a piercing weapon for it?

Greetings and salutations to all.

I am a full time swordsman turned 80/20 swordie/bomber , but i have now decided to flip it around and become an 80/20 bomber/swordie

My Gear as of now:

Swords: DA, GF, BTB, CIV
Guns: Polairs, AP
Bombs: DBB, Shiver, Master blast bomb, Plasma Cap
Helmet: Devine Veil, Skolver, Volc Demo
Armor: Devine Mantle, Skolver, Vog
Shield: BTS, Owlite, VPS, CoA
Trinkets: Bomb CTR, Sword ASI

I use 4 weps and both trinkets

Plans:

Get Mad Bomber Suit
Find Voltaic Tempest Recipe
No Nitronome - I'm very underwhelmed by this bomb in its 4 star form, I think I may leave a sword in my loadout instead

I need opinions on the following:

Get a Vortex Bomb - I'm aware that the Electron is better, but that involves a whole lot of Lockdown which does not excite me, plus I'll have a Tempest, so is it that much better that I must have it, or is Graviton fine?

Get another Haze bomb - Agni, VV, both? I'm leaning with both :)

RSS - worth investing in?

Any more trinkets?

Thanking you all in advance for your advice. Love you long time

Thanks for that, totally forgot about status trinkets, and since i got 7 million spark tokens, i should get me some :)

Once I realized the difference between glacius and shivermist, I regretted crafting the Fiery Atomizer instead of the Combuster.

The thing is, Freeze is the only status effect you can break accidentally. So the shivermist reapplies that status while glacius does not (still I like strong freeze). Meanwhile, fire stays whether you hit once or many times. So now I feel like it was a waste to craft FA over Combuster since the latter has STRONG fire and more outright damage, and only a little less range.

Anyway about the bombs again, is VV really that popular? Until recently, I never saw ANYONE use it. Right now my poison and freeze bombs are only 2*. Would they be any use whatsoever on Vanaduke? As long as they hit, it's the same status, right? I was working on Voltaic Tempest but unless the enemies got patched so they're actually staggered by it, it's more for PVE and it never seemed to help me much on Vanaduke at 3*...

Blitz Needle didn't used to be popular. When I started playing during the Steam release Vanaduke fights were all about Argent Peacemaker, very few people used Blitz whatsoever. Yet now it's probably the single most used weapon against Vanaduke, and nothing changed about Blitz, it's just that more and more people became aware of how good it was. Nobody would ever attempt sword-runs against Vana outside of gimmicky fun runs once upon a time, yet now the world record Vana fight is held by a sword only run. In games with any variable like gear, stat distritbution, different movesets or whatever, there are inevitably going to be things that people overlook and then one day via exposure gain popularity; half the time these things are no better than they previous were; people just never really considered them. The competetive Pokemon metagame is more or less entirely built around people coming with crazy ideas that take the meta by storm, and dozens upon dozens of other games demonstrate this. It probably only doesn't happen too much in SK due to the fact the competetive aspects of the game are relatively young, and there isn't a massive gear selection. Point being, something becoming popular doesn't have to mean it's gotten better, it could simply mean people have discovered uses for it that simply hadn't been given exposure previously.

Although considering VV specifically, it's worth noting that a while back poison didn't even function properly as a status when dealing with healers, which is one of VV's main niches. And pre-Shadow Lairs most stratums don't have a particuarly large abundance of healers, so outside of arenas most people wouldn't consider it. VV also unfortunately has the disadvantage of not increase overall party dps as much as AoA or VT, and lacks the crowd control effects of Shiver and SS with means it only has a few limited niche uses. Of course with those particular niches being mainly prominent in arenas and boss stratums (The depths people run the most) it does end up seemingly have more utility comparatively than bombs that it actually doesn't.

I should also probably point out that most of the discussion regarding VV going on atm is mostly me and people I've convinced to try the bomb out, it's hardly gained a massive surge in popularity; I'm just pushing the case that it has utilities that we've previously overlooked and this being a bomber thread it's inevitably going to get discussed.

As for the other status bombs, your status bombs won't do you much good against Vana at anything less than their five star variants since the raidus of the bombs won't effectively reach Vana in phase 5, and as Trying mentioned they actually do apply a stronger status at 5*. Also maybe I'm not following, but if you don't have any 5* status bombs what are you actually bombing with Batabii? Do you just carry dps bombs and/or vortex alongside swords/guns? If so you're seriously underestimating the potency of status bombs, it's a bit disengenious to compare them to the Brandish lines, the bombs have a much greater aoe and remain in play re-applying their status for several seconds unlike the rather quick Brandish charge. Not that the Brandish swords aren't excellent, but if you're looking to spread status the bombs do it far, far better.

In the Clockworks you'll want Elite Boom Modules. There really isn't ever a reason to take any sort of Heart Pendants into PvE, the health bonus will make very little difference in the grand shceme of things and the extra damage is essential for maxmimizing your dps. If for one reason or another you wanted to play pure status bombs and had Max CTR without trinkets then you could run Heart Pendants I suppose, but even then you'd probably better going for trinkets that buff the ASI or Dmg of your other weapons, unless you're only carrying support bombs which isn't something I'd recommend.

In Lockdown you'll absolutely need Heart Pendants since especially after the recent update successfully managing dps bombs in tier 3 PvP is an uphill battle, and the gain from the damage will be less effective than the additional health. Mind you I don't really bomb much in Lockdown, so someone who does should probably weigh in on that.

Ash/Tempest/Vortex are all much more useful in the regular Royal Jelly Palace since at tier 2 they whittle down the meager health of mobs extremely fast and there isn't the same abundance of Silkwings there in the Shadow Lair equivilent. Against the Royal Jelly itself it helps, the fight is over so fast that poison vials are essentially just as effective. VV's primary niches are counteracting healers and debuffing large groups of enemies in situations where damage over time bomb wouldn't be as quick, and stacking with other status bombs in areas with healers to increase the damage rate. For the most part you'll find yourself using VV in Firestorm Citadel, non-Venom Fang arenas and some Shadow Lairs. Outside of those areas there's little use for it, it helps in a couple Danger Rooms but the likelyhood of you running into specific DRs during a depth isn't high enough to justify carrying bombs 'just in case'. It's something I think dedicated bombs should have in their arsenal precisely for the situations where it excells at its niche, but if you're crafting resources are limited and you're building things up from a purely pragmatic stand point you'd want more 'general' use items before aiming at the more niche selection.

In general for any bomber I always recommend the progression of bombs in "tiers" of importance;

You need them: Ash of Agni, Dark Briar Barrage, Electron/Graviton Vortex (Nitronome)

You should have them: Radiant Sun Shards, Voltaic Tempest, Shivermist Buster (Nitronome)

Niche but a dedicated bomber should probably have them: Venom Veiler, Stagger Storm (Nitronome)

Bottom: The rest of the fully upgraded bombs that no one really uses, and should probably only be made if you're a really dedicated bomber who wants to try them out, maybe try and find a use for them, or just for collection purposes.

Nitro is all over since it's position depends a lot on how much you solo, how many weapon slots you have, ect. It can either be just as important as Ash, or something you could easily put off until last. I should also mention this for use in the Clockworks, if you're wanting to bomb in Lockdown primarily then Tempest and Stagger should be elevated, although I would suggest establishing PvE loadouts first.

hmm you guys are confusing me :/
So is VV still classified as a bomb for fsc or is VT more worth it?

So overall which would you take?

Damage bombs in FSC are a complete joke after the patch. You can walk through full floors without taking a scratch just by planting RSS for zombies and circling DBB for the trojans; no effort at all. Not even been using any other bombs at all until the last room before Vana when I tend to start droppin' Shivers if things get out of hand.
Not used Nitro at all in FSC and, with the way things are with zombies, I can't see any need to personally.

You know what I mean, just assume I meant atomizer vs blazebrand and GF vs FOV.

And RSS works great on vana, with the only stipulation being that, after his first (fireball-less) stage, you have to lure him into charging on top of the bombs. Then each one will do 1000+ dmg per.

Oh yeah, RSS works more than well enough but...by god is it just not worth it compared to Blitz Needle or...AP or...well...most other ways to attack him x.x