@Zhel:
> As I'm running JKs mostly, a Toxic Vaporizer would be most immediately useful, but reading the threads, the Fiery seems more useful overall. Tips? I assume CTR: Medium+ would be the best UV to attempt getting, but the suggested monster damage ones earlier in the thread would be fine too?

I find the poison haze series to be lackluster compared to the other two. For what you're doing, I would recommend getting the fire haze line first. As for CTR, medium is overkill if you plan on going full volcanic demo which will give you a total of Ultra CTR. You should either be looking at getting a low CTR haze bomb (which are bloody cheap) or if you're planning on running full mad bomber or a mix set, then you should look for a damage UV (I recommend construct or undead).

>-Armor UVs: I haven't seen much suggestions on these yet. The wiki reads that status defenses are better than protections, opinions?

Shadow defense is great and will shore up some of the weaknesses you have. Shadow-dealing enemies are some of the toughest to do a clean bomb clear against (devilites, greavers) so you're bound to get hit once or twice clearing them which makes any type of shadow defense you can proc a good one. Other UVs that may be useful are pierce since charging bombs will leave you vulnerable and pierce projectiles absolutely wreck you if you're unlucky enough to get hit by them. For stattus uvs:

Poison: If you're running damage bombs, poison can really mess up your flow since it cuts the damage you're dealing by 2/3. You can get away with not having this by spamming fire while you're poisoned but this UV won't hurt.
Shock: Shock is an annoying status as a bomber (and in general) because it will interrupt your charge making you nearly useless while bombing
Fire: I'd only recommend this if you're running mad bomber or a mix. Fire is similar to shock in that the ticks will interrupt your charge if not timed right whcih can be pretty deadly if you're unable to get your bombs off

Curse, Freeze, Stun aren't a huge deal imo.

The different CTR values in the Volcanic Demo Set is correct, and a bit annoying. So if you are wearing full Volcanic Demo and have a Level 10 bomb then your CTR will only reach Ultra.

There are a few common workarounds to this issue:

• Wear full Volcanic Demo then get a UV CTR Low to hit Max.
• Wear the Volcanic Demo Helm and the Mad Bomber Suit - resulting in CTR Max at Level 10, plus Medium Damage Bonus.
• Wear Volcanic Demo Helm and get a UV CTR Medium to hit Max - this frees up your armor for other bonuses or resistances. This is what I usually do.

The damage bonus from the Mad Bomber Set is nice, as long as one can handle the resistance penalties. With just a UV Damage Medium vs Type you can get Max CTR and Max Damage for that type, Very High for everything else. Pretty sweet.

I'll start editing that wiki page for grammar, spelling, and that formal voice that all wikis seem to have. One thing that seems to be missing is simple information on how to get your bearings as a beginner bomber, and that's something that I know very little about. I can format a wiki and make sure its English is proper, but on this topic I'm completely blind. Information on exactly what to do as a bomber, as well as some graphics that give a novice bomber an idea of what they are doing, would be great additions to the page right now.

That said, I'm doing my best to learn the art of bombing, and a wiki page like this has the potential to not only help me get on my feet, but help others who are new to the role as well.

EDIT: Just rewrote the first section. Will probably work on the charts when I'm feeling less lazy.

>Weak side? Did you mean Trojans? Those are a joke as a bomber.
No. I mean lumbers and it works even if they're grouped up. You want to put the bomb next to them on their weak side (aka behind and the side their big arm isn't on). They can't turn fast enough to hit you. The trick here is not to shield or you'll bump them away; just keep moving.

Video: Lumbers vs Ash of Agni
Video: Lumbers vs Ash of Agni 2
Video: Lumbers vs Radiant Sun Shards

Of course you can always brute force it as well. Less elegant but if it works, it works.

Video: Lumbers vs Nitronome

>I've learned that the blast bomb line and mecha knights do NOT go together in arenas.
You can nitronome or blast bomb arenas if you want. I generally don't do it unless I'm solo but the trick is to drop it down then walk in front of it while charging another bomb. Mechaknights will pause to attack you. Step back behind your bomb again so they get blown away from you, step forward and drop the 2nd bomb where the first was and repeat the cycle.

Video: Mecha Knights vs Nitronome

The hardest part here is the setup but after you get it setup it is EZ mode

>> And so...the new bombs...any details? Any opinions on the changes to the bombs? (I really care more for the former question than the latter).
SPOILER: Monsters don't hate shock as much as we do.

The shock bomb is, well, a shock vaporizer. It is everything you thought it'd be. It lays down a mist and everything that enters it gets shocked. Now you might be thinking it is overpowered but you're probably conjuring up images of the ghost of shock. When the patch came out that nerfed shock, it didn't just apply to players. Right now shock ticks don't last as long which means they no longer interrupt enemy attacks as often. The duration is short (think poison), the ticks do very minimal damage compared to fire. I haven't used the 5* version yet or used it outside of the munitions factory (which is not very bomb friendly) so I'm not going to draw any conclusions of its worth.

Keep in mind that, like the other vaporizers, it has limited use inside its own strata. Outside of shock strata though, the shock vaporizer is dangerous to use around mecha knights since you can end up shocking yourself. Small note but I figured it would be worth it to mention. (ironically this is one of the few/only? mobs that seems to get disrupted by shock ticks since shock gets exaggerated on them)

--
Regarding the changes to the current bombs (first part copy pasted from another thread)

The radius used to be quite large. For reference, you used to be able to status the training hall bots from across the gap but now you can't.
It is still slightly larger than the nitronome blast radius though (ash left, nitro right).
You can still freeze enemies right on the outer edge of the shivermist ring.
via Noodleface: Old Shivermist vs New Shivermist [Video]

As far as my opinion of this change, I don't really mind it. Maxing out your CTR used to allow you to barely maintain 3 simultaneous freeze rings which were huge. The change made it so even if you're fully minimizing your charge time (i.e. before the sound/light up even) you'll be just shy of keeping 3 up (the 1st disappears right before the 3rd one comes up). The radius is smaller but they made 3* and 4* versions more useful as a result. I'm only using the 4* shock vaporizer now and I can cover enough area to spread status. I think people that don't have 5* versions are quite pleased with the change.

As far as mechanics go, I don't think there is much to fear. The change in mist duration appears to be less than 300-500ms. Keep in mind the fuse speed looks similar and since the radius is smaller the fuse has been shortened a bit as a result of the changes. The smaller radius falls more in line with the nitronome/DBB which means you can combo slightly better. As for vanaduke, I haven't done it yet but I've always been able to hit Vana with nitronome/DBB even in phase 5. You have to be a quarter of a "square" closer but it should stilll be possible to trap him. The only difference now is if you were making a ring of ice around him with 3 shivs you can only maintain 2 rings but this isn't a huge deal imo.

Again, I've only been running munitions factory so it's really hard to come to any conclusions yet. The area isn't very bomb friendly and I find myself using more swords than anything else.

+Bomb Charge time is similar to Haze bomb line charge time and acts the same way.

+Bomb is of a mix of Shivermist Buster & Ash of Agni.
Why so?
The shock generated by the bomb holds down the enemy like how it held us down horribly.
Does DoT, Damage over Time, like Ash of Agni but lesser damage.

+Well, like all other vaporizers, it works well when paired with the other.

+I don't know what to say but I do love it.

A post of my video - http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/14817

Actually, according to flavor text, we are Spiral Grenadiers.

I think you meant the Catalyzer, the Pulsar is the one whose bullets become stronger when they travel a certain distance. The Catalyzer has the explosion.

Anyway I have a Crystal Bomb and was wondering if it was a no contest decision to make it into a a Radiant Sun Shards. Is the Ionized Salt Bomb really that bad? Also should I bother with the Static Capacitor or go for the Ash of Agni. Fire is my favorite status but I already have a Firotech Alchemer for that so might it be better to go for the Shock or should I just have more Fire as backup? Also compared to the Haze Bombs and the Static Capacitor how good is the Sun Shards?

Well, the Venom Veiler is probably the 5th best haze-style bomb now although that doesn't say much about the VT. The only thing shock has going for it is that when enemies are clustered together they can shock each other and do a lot more ticks than normal. It can also be stacked with the other damage over time bomb. Another combo, possibly, is to stack it with graviton which should cause the enemies in the vortex to shock each other rapidly (maybe). I haven't tried this so I don't know.

From what I've seen it appears that the shock ticks also increase the rate of fire ticks (but fire ticks don't increase shock ticks).

The only thing that it seems good at killing by itself are the mini royal cubes. Their large numbers, small size, and densely packed groupings as well as their low HP makes it slaugher for the VT.

Hmm, interesting, thanks for the opinion. I'm going to go for it when I get a chance regardless. I am intrigued by the fire + shock tick thing. I guess that's like how you can use freeze + fire to increase fires damage rate. (I'm lazy but perhaps that should go in that guide as team bombing tactics or something).

Slow response, but thanks for the wonderful suggestions! Inching ever closer to my Nitronome (9k off!), but got a 3* Fiery Vaporizer and once I got used to it, loving it for group play. Solo, I still run Master Blast and Sealed Sword, though I may try the Vaporizer for the Twins as I'm soloing that now.

Also really digging the wiki page so far. Something missing I see would be trinket/shield combos and suggestions. Should one go Royal Jelly shield and Skelly trinkets for Stun/Sleep resist, or Skelly Shield/RJ trinkets for Poison/Freeze, possibly even Crest of Almire for Fire/Shock resist! Etc., etc. ^.^

yeah, I think those questions are purely situational, however, I don't think you can go wrong with owlite much (though what can I say, I only keep 2 shields, proto and grey owlite lol). However, despite that inexperience, the reason why I figure owlite is good for a bomber is because when you're trying to dodge things as a bomber, say you're trying to hold enemies with a shivermist, well that's all nice and good, but a gun puppy or two that's out of range will likely sneak up on you while you're busy charging. If you're fast enough to switch to your shield, you need a shield that can take hits from elemental, and that's owlite.

Though if you find yourself in fiend strata more, perhaps crest will do you just as good, since devilites can be just as bad as gun puppies when you don't see them.

P.S. Are any of you trying to pure bomb your way through Ironclaw? I think for once that seems to be one place where that's annoying with any bomb but that could just be my willingness to take a faster method that makes me think that.

Well, that's true. Situational Items that aren't bombs are probably better off in their own or a general guide. Along the lines of them in this guide, I'm thinking as a 'general gear setup', such as for a growing bomber boy (such as myself lol) working on his first set.

My current excuse of a shield is just the bristling buckler from wildwood tokens. Been too focused on getting that Nitronome, and except for the extremely hectic fights (bad positioning in JK floors, robot/puppy waves in arenas, etc.) I have not been finding myself in great need of a longer lasting shield. My next shield any time soon will likely just be the Jelly Shield from JK tokens lol.

As far as the shield mechanics go, I know the elemental/shadow/etc. defenses are only active when the shield is active, is the same true with status resists? The earlier post and combinations are under the impression that they're passive defenses as statuses don't seem to leak through an active shield unless it fails due to damage/health. If not, then I may need to think more on my first 5* shield and purchased trinkets!

Not as experienced so may not be seeing the opportunities, but between soloing, the shear amount of switches, and the semi-sense of timing needed for hitting some of them, I never find myself the time free to charge either of my bombs. With other players, I did find my fiery vaporizer useful as a good chunk of monsters there are constructs, plus no knockback to hit the jellies back into the electric fields. The last group fight (3 respawning mobs and the 2 switches) and the boss fight though; not sure I can see any efficient way to do those as a pure bomber.

@Eek: Thanks! Good points on the bomber's usage (or lack of) with shields.

My original thoughts were on the idea to have all defenses covered, which would be the earlier combinations (jelly trinkets/shield for pierce, skelly for shadow). Good to know on the status trinkets though, as status seems to be what I should be paying attention to, aside the pesky puppies.

Considering the rather bad latency if playing in Europe, I can really recommend a shield. I would lay down a bomb, immediately activate the shield and crawl away. If I don't, I'll most likely get hit by something I couldn't react to. I get hit often enough by something I evaded on my screen anyway...
First playing TF2 with a ping of <20 ms and then a round of SK can be quite deadly, unfortunately ;-)

I own the Plasma now.

Someone else noted it that shock + freeze combos like freeze+fire does. So that could be a combo for FSC if you ever wanted to be different since you could never do that with the Ash.

I can't say anything about the VV. I never used one. But people only seem to value that for JK, I think anywhere else any other bomb is probably recommended. You could hold onto your VV and hope for the unbind shop one day.

>Someone else noted it that shock + freeze combos like freeze+fire does. So that could be a combo for FSC if you ever wanted to be different since you could never do that with the Ash.

I haven't noticed shock interacting with freeze. Fire/Ice and Fire/Shock interact though. I'm not sure if Fire/Shock/Ice does anything. I've spammed all 3 in a room in Jelly Palace but it was hard to tell what was going on. (I was only doing Shock) but the ticks looked the same. The person with fire didn't mention seeing ticks twice as fast as normal Fire/Ice combo so I have no idea.

It appears that fire does tick faster while enemies are shocked (note: shock does not tick faster while on fire). I'm not sure if this is intentional or not (is the shiv one intentional?) so I'm not sure I would get too comfortable with this combination but it does work. I can't say whether the ticks are faster with AoA/VT or AoA/Shiv. The benefit of the AoA/VT combo is that you'll be doing more damage over time compared to the shiv combo. The whole status behavior is strange to me though. I'm pretty sure I've been shocked and on fire at the same time before and I never noticed taking fire damage faster than usual.

As for VT in FSC in general it seems to be OK. Note that I'm trying to kill 2 birds with one stone here with graviton/VT. If I were to run FSC again I would possibly consider taking the VT and leaving the graviton at home and not the other way around. Despite how awesome it was to charge attack a stack, the set-up is more effort than it was worth. Using VT w/ a damage bomb the same way you increase DPS w/ ash of agni on non-fire stages IS viable though. Whether or not the damage works out in your favor is kind of arguable though but that's for number counters to figure out!

>Poisoned enemies take more damage and deal less damage, that could be useful if your purpose was to just sit there and rotate between a couple status bombs
The debuffs aren't that big. It's less than DVS/Vile Striker and poison doesn't last very long. Keep in mind that the new update made it so that at max CTR you can only maintain 2 status fields at a time instead of 3 so bomb juggling 3 bombs will always leave one status field not active. For fire/ice/shock this is sort of OK since they'll usually outlast 1 status fields but in my experience poison doesn't last long enough to do this. As for how effective you'll be spamming 3 status bombs..

I don't know. Try it out and let us know how much your teammates appreciate it.

Hey Negima,
I just tested it again and didn't notice a difference. What you might be seeing is freeze keeping enemies in a pack and them getting hit with AoE from each other more. Not completely sure.

- Eeks

Here is what I'm talking about. Tan fell asleep and stopped doing ice so I can't be 100% sure but the shocks look similar before and after he stopped so who knows! Shock does look mildly useful for FSC though because it makes the zombies get real derp

Hey guys, read the whole post and it has been incredibly helpful. I have only had the game for a couple of days (and this is my first post), and I am wondering what 2 bombs would be the best for all around performance, both solo and in group. I know many people have said that AoA and Shivermist (and maybe the VT?) are two good ones to have, but should I aim for two vaps as my first two bombs, or would it be better to get one vap and a nitronome for the damage. I am by no means going to have the fully upgraded versions right away, but I want to be able to start the alchemy lines for them. I do not buy ce with real money so I don't have the luxury to play around with it.

On a side note I plan on using a sword (calibur 2*) and a gun (firotech 2*) with the two bombs, if that makes any difference. I also have wolver coat and spiral demo helm, and plan on upgrading those both. I know I won't be a "pure bomber" but I do plan on using bombs a majority of the time, with the sword and gun as a backup. Thanks in advance, love what you all have done here.