Spiral Knights - The Elite Bomber Thread

The Elite Bomber Thread

1027 replies [Last post]

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 09:43

#851

Demonicsothe

Under 5000cr is about every

Under 5000cr is about every piece of equipment at 2*, which ranges anywhere from 1k to 6k cr. You won't be getting much with bombs at that level, alchemers don't obtain ricochets until 3*.

You can't just buy something good to use, you have to upgrade/craft it to make it good.

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 15:48

#852

Swolenator

i have ash ctr low, and

i have ash ctr low, and voltaic tempest with no uv and a toxic 2 star but only has slime med. I usually go in a party and so far there has been a shiver. I could try to get a ctr med bomb trinket to cover all bombs or like a freeze with med ctr. I'm mostly a swordy with haze bombs except in like arenas but I do have dark ret, unheated rss, and master blast. Was just more curious what people do defense wise since bomber armor was only elemental defense. As I think a bomb would help out in almire last room just wasn't sure whether to go for getting seperate ctr or wear bomber armor and get like hearts or brinks stuff which noone seems to like.

And to SYBRM the bombs start to get much better as their radius increases with higher stars. If you are looking for a support bomb you could get a fire one also you could get the static one from tokens from beating the twins enough times. They will help a little getting the 3star fire will help but 4 star is where it starts to get a big radius. If you are looking for support haze style bombs in the long run I would say ash of agni fire bomb, and then a shiver freeze bomb for vana. Also you need to factor in what kind of enemies you are primarily facing as that can change what bombs you want to get. Not sure if you are looking to become a pure bomber or just get one for arenas, jk etc. But I would probably say the fire vaporizer would help a little.

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 16:55

#853

Poopsie

...

defense in clockworks doesn't matter much no matter how specialized you are.
I could say these based on my experience. Doing fine with just skolver set on anywhere, even at arena (mecha bot do heavy elemental damage), fsc (shadow + element + fire), etc. Also, I always use one gunner set (seerus mask + shadowsun slicker + swiftstrike buckler), and one bomber set (mad bomber set) everywhere and I could say I am doing damage better than average players, surviving better than average players. There was even a person who finished FSC pre-update (when roof falling hurts you) with mad bomber, post-update is like a bad joke to him. I did try mad bomber set at FSC, one full duration of fire could take up to half of your health (with vitapod 12), without you will be dead.
The main key is to read enemies movement, this game is not really about tanking, but avoiding all kinds of damage by knowing where they attack.

Anyway if you really want to know the detail how much defense affect the damage. Read this
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Antistone

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 22:27

#854

Swolenator

so according to that I won't

so according to that I won't notice a whole lot of difference with trinket or lower uv's when comes to dmg taken. So probably better to focus on ctr and combining it with snarb gear.

Edit: made my volc demo helmet got a low shock, low pois, low curse. Side note got a salamander suit drop too.

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 23:26

#855

Softhead

Can someone awnser this?

I've been thinking.....
For my Bomber FSC loadout, what should I get?

1: RSS, DBB, VT, VV(my most propsed one).

2. RSS, VT, Glacs, G-Vortex

3 VT, VV, Shiv, Glacs.

4. RSS, Nitro, DBB, VT?

Also, what Bomber set should I get?

Mad?

Mad/Volcanic

Volc

Volc/Bomba

Mad/Bomba

Is Volc/Bomba useful in most situations?

Is merc useful as a all use bomber set?

Can merc be comboed with other demo sets and would they be more versatile?

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 23:46

#856

Zolb

From my experience

I've sported Mad, Volcanic and Merc Demo. Merc Demo's by far the best in my opinion.

Also, for FSC - All I use are RSS and Shiver in there. And I own nearly every 5* bomb.

Sun, 07/01/2012 - 23:48

#857

Oatmonster

Lick

@Tohu-Adachi, For your first load out, the DBB doesn't seem too necessary, seeing as it's main purpose is to kill trojans but as long as it fit's your playstile, I say go for it.

Full merc and bombastic sets are generally more useful in LD due to their lack of CTR. With trinkets, a full bombastic set is just a freeze resistance volcanic set (with trinkets). The safest and cheapest option for max CTR would be full volcanic although mad/volcanic or even full mad (if you're feeling confident) are also very viable sets.

Tue, 07/03/2012 - 07:29

#858

Nohaen

I have to ask. I've been

I have to ask. I've been attempting to be a pure bomber, and usually do pretty well. What is a proper way to deal with godsdamned fiends? They are the only things I don't see to be able to kill without dying first.

Tue, 07/03/2012 - 10:37

#859

Poopsie

...

Have you looked up Eek's Videos, Devilites?
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Bombing_guide#Videos

Wed, 07/04/2012 - 13:26

#860

Gulliverbfg

Venom Veiler can be fun

I started this game as a mostly gunner type, because I like to rely on skill more than strength. I love it when I get through a tier without losing any health at all because I was able to dodge and shoot well enough to get through unscathed.

Then in the past few weeks I have found bombing to be great fun. Dodging in and out of the enemy, placing bombs behind them or at their feet, then skipping before they charge.

Today, I tried something new. I went and found a couple of arenas and took them out with just the Venom Veiler, and a Valiance for backup.

The strategy was to take advantage of the harm that menders do to their poisoned allies. It went much faster than I anticipated, which means menders healing was doing some pretty hefty damage. I took virtually no damage, because the large haze area of the venom velier allowed me to focus on not getting too close, and just let the menders to all the damage, including ultimately to each other. Usualy the result was one mender left standing.

Occassionally, both menders died, or a certain spawn had no mender, but I usually had to take out one monster type and the menders came back in the next wave.

It was a blast.

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 21:20

#861

Softhead

Hi.

I got a Haze bomb....

I thinking of getting it to 4*, but..

Is it worth it?

Is there anyplaces it shines on?

Can it be used most of the time?

Can it be a back up in areas where I don't have the right status bomb?

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 07:38

#862

Trying

I would say use it ONLY after you place down a VV. That way if the double attack bug happens you dont get screwed over.

It's a decent Shiv substitute if it didnt cause the double attack.

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 08:42

#863

Halifix

By the way, you may want an

By the way, you may want an Electron Vortex in place of Graviton in FSC, if you don't mind farming Krogmo's. When pure bombing there, I would bring RSS/VV/EV/SB.

The double attack bug occurs with specific enemies, like jellies and lumbers. Stun is extremely effective on enemies that charge for a while; alpha wolvers bite once (I believe?), while graveyard phantoms, mecha knights, flourish chargers in LoA, and possibly Kats cannot attack. Mecha knights can still shock you by shocking themselves. I would bring a SS to graveyards, LoA, and maybe arenas.

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 10:01

#864

Trying

The double attack bug happens with any monster and knights too.

All monsters still attack just far slower. Alpha wolvers bite once and thwackers only swing once.

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 14:45

#865

Halifix

No, monsters that start

No, monsters that start charging an attack while in stun will often time out, if they are continuously stunned until 4-5 seconds later. Kats do not attack if they are stunned before they dash.

Wed, 08/08/2012 - 17:22

#866

Kon-Ron

8/8/12 R.I.P. radiant sun shards

today is a sad day
we gonna remember you

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 04:49

#867

Fallout

ew shards

I kid, Hello everyone again....

ssooooo on the new bombs, how is everyone playing them? I've deducted the whole kiting routine and wall hugging is out of the question due to loss of shards and chaos that is caused when mobs are knocked everywhere.

I've been doing the blast bomb thing with running back to the centre and placing another; which seems to work alright. Slimes have been a slight challenge with the SSB but the SSS is wrecking fiends as it was 'originally' designed to: which I am happy about. I have notice a bit of glitchiness when taking down large mobs such as lichens and Trojans with shards dealing no damage or just disappearing which I am not too happy about. Loving Deadly crystal = pwns kats. but anyways, what does everyone thing (no ranting on how it isn't like it used to be).

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 10:16

#868

Capt-Chopper

The knockback on the second

The knockback on the second explosion of shards makes spamming them tough, it also makes it slightly harder for my teammates to attack them. I was hoping they would remove the lower the knockback but oh well. I honestly preferred the old RSS for killing fiends safely, now I have to get closer and the shard bomb's range is very small(each individual shard that is) that I prefer using DBB for killing them instead. The New ionized salt bomb line is the best currently to me with its shock status with makes the knockback less of a problem, which is kind of Ironic since ISB used to be the worst bomb.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 13:30

#869

Eeks

The bombs have been really

The bombs have been really disappointing for me. At this point, I would not recommend them to someone who doesn't already have a nitronome, BAB/irontech, and a DBB.

Even when I kill stuff w/ the bombs it doesn't feel very satisfying. You're basically dealing damage with shards from something you dropped 2-3 bombs ago. The delay between you dropping the bomb and it delivering its main payload is way too long right now.

Bombers need good anticipation but 5-6 seconds into the future? Come on now. It makes guessing where you're going to knockback enemies w/ the outer-ring impossible.

I'll most more detailed impressions once I get more time w/ them under my belt and do some tests/videos but so far a huge thumbs down. 1 out of 5 snipes!

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 14:27

#870

Trying

I think pretty much everyone agrees that the shards should blow up a lot faster.

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 03:06

#871

Dancinjen

How i use the shard bombs...

These bombs are meant to be stacked and overlapped in a sort of olympic ring pattern. circle around the monsters to cluster them together while I'm charging then drop the bomb and charge another and over lap the bombs. It creates this sort of... cluster and craziness. I have found this to be the most effective way to use the bomb.

Killing gremlin healers though are a pain, it doesn't cause enough damage at once to really be effective against them. At some point they lay that healing ring thing and start to heal themselves and then you have to fight with that because in t3 they heal themselves faster than the bomb causes damage.

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 11:11

#872

Softhead

However Jen,

I find the Dark Matter lines useful with knockdown and damage on other grems.

I'm hoping to get the 3* and later 4* for tests.

Also, I've been doing the samw against grems as knockdown gives me time to plant around them.

WHen using the edge of the first radius, it knocks them back to the second ring....

Turrets can be affected...

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 11:35

#873

Eeks

That's great and all but DBB,

That's great and all but DBB, Nitrnome, etc. are all more predictable and consistent than shard bombs for hitting, knocking, and dealing damage to gremlins.

People keep bringing up that you can hit a single* target with the small radius of a shard bomb, push it into the outer ring and hit it for 1-2 shards. That works great in theory but in actual usage it doesn't work like that. Stuff moves, there are always more than 1 target, and using the bomb like that for single-target damage is one of the lowest DPS weapons in the game even when you manage a double shard hit.

The fact that you find it annoying to kill stuff when menders are in the area is very telling as to how bad these bombs are for DPS. Almost every other 5* weapon I can think of can out DPS menders but when you're in a situation where you're 1v2 with an enemy, mender vs you? NOPE. Hitting targets is too much of a dice roll; it isn't consistent enough and even when you manage to stack shards and hit an enemy multiple times the damage is way too low.

* The radius is way too small to accommodate more than 2 targets anyway and if you manage to knockback multiple with the initial blast you'll miss some of the enemies with the outer ring.

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 14:23

#874

Dancinjen

Exactly what eeks said.

These bombs aren't meant for aiming or anything like that. They have a bigger radius now... but not big enough for a lot of them.

Which is why I have found the technique that I use very useful when using these bombs. These bombs ARE NOT like the rss in that, you can plant a bomb and hit a target. these bombs HAVE to be stacked and overlapped to be effective. This is a completely different playstyle than what most people are used to, especially those that were hardcore old style RSS. These are in now way a one shot bomb. You have to lay at least two or three before you can get an effective damage cycle going.

These bombs aren't meant for kiting. it isn't like haze bombs where you can run around and plant a single one. These are up in the monster faces bombs. You have to weave through them and what not. I like to put the first bomb on the outside of them... then the second bomb in the middle of them overlapped within the other bomb. I keep weaving in and out of them. This way it keeps the fast moving targets close and not spread out. You HAVE to know how to dodge effectively to get this to actually work right. If you lag real bad like I do... it will take some getting used to doing it this way and knowing the EXACT attack patterns of each monster so you know when and where to move.

This style does not work well with turrets or polyps. it takes too long and you'll get hit before you can really ever get a decent pattern going. Because the fuse time on the bombs take too long.

I wear mercurial demo most of the time. With two ctr trinkets. Mercurial demo has a low damage increase and movement speed on each piece. So I usually have very high ctr and medium damage. Then with the bomb ctr bonuses once the are leveled I should have max. If I'm completely wrong with this then feel free to let me know. lol. But yeah Sometimes I switch out a ctr trinket for damage trinket depending on what levels i'm in.

I HATE mad bomber you'll never see me recommend mad bomber to anyone. It's too weak. Unless you can get three max uv's to shock, freeze, and fire... I hate the gear. lol. Volcanic is good. I just like mercurial demo because of the movement speed increase and shock resistance. I find not being able to charge a bomb because of the shock ticks VERY annoying. So, I have max resistance to that.

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 17:48

#875

Fallout

lameofshard

The only problem I'm having with the bombs is the damage and the shard splash. you can spam all the shards you want but even after 20 bombs you aren't guaranteed to hit anything due to the blind spots the shards have. The damage is so mediocre it is easier to get out a BAB and 2 hit everything. I like the general mechanics; but it just isn't enough to do anything.

currently the DDMB> SSB BY A LOT! the 4 star version of dark matter does more than a maxed SSB... which is saying something. If you are going full bomber head for the dark matter rather than the salt line purely because you need the damage that dark matter offers; rather than shock

The sun shards on the other hand is quite nice as it applies stun so often, it can be thought of just a better stagger storm that also dominates fiends. however the splinter still out-damages the sun shards, so I'm at a loss to which one I prefer.

I do like the deadly shard bomb though; it's pretty and red.

Sun, 08/12/2012 - 02:07

#876

No-Thanks

#871

it should be instant with some nice explosions, thats a cluster bomb(like the brandish charges know what i mean??)
this bomb feels like im painting a freakin carpet

Mon, 08/13/2012 - 07:17

#877

Michaelb

BAB is awesome now! :D

Mon, 08/13/2012 - 17:12

#878

Eeks

BAB and Irontech usable now

The radius increase for BAB and Irontech made a huge difference in usability. Having stun in combination with such large knockback also nullifies most of the animation bugs associated with that status. I still wish the damage on both bombs were buffed though. BAB has a longer charge time and fuse than the Nitronome and has a considerably slower walk speed but isn't compensated with much in return. The stun on BAB should be strong instead of moderate and Irontech should be buffed to BAB damage then BAB should have its damage increased by 10-15%. In the long run, I don't think this will make a huge difference as far as hits-to-kill goes for the majority of situations but it'd make a difference between someone being able to kill stuff in less hits without UVs. [citation needed]

Hey, how about that deconstructor?

Mon, 08/13/2012 - 17:50

#879

Stingz

Deconstructor, whats that?

Suggested list of changes for Deconstructor line:
-Pure elemental
-Drop the construct bonus
-Buff damage to equivalent * Blast Bomb
-Add a 5* version

There, then the Decon line won't be a 4* red Nitro with less damage.

Wed, 08/15/2012 - 13:19

#880

Silent-Echoes

I'd like to see the

I'd like to see the Deconstructor line be more like the Gremlin bombs they're modeled after, maybe make it similar to shards in that after the initial explosion it lets out a lose of nearby mines that have the same fuse time as the bombs Gremlin Demos have. Alternatively a 'mine' style bomb that once set has a really long fuse (5-10 seconds) but it automatically detonates if an enemy crosses over it. Although if we're trying to avoid redesigning bombs after the travesty of the new shard lines, I quite like Stingz' suggestion, although maybe take away the knockback so it's more like an Elemental DBB.

Sat, 08/18/2012 - 10:40

#881

Eeks

Shard Bomb Verdict

Hey guys,
So I've been forcing myself to use these bombs to get a better idea of what they're capable of and I've basically come to the conclusion that all of them need major tweaks. To preface this post, I've been using the SSS (pierce/stun), SSB (shadow/shock), and DCB (ele). Some of the issues with the shard bombs can be partially overlooked (slow start-up, long double-fuse) but I think the most egregious aspects are the low base damage and small radii of shard explosions.

From my use of these bombs, I'd say that the DCB is the most useful of the bunch followed by SSB (or DDMB). I would not recommend either of the piercing bombs or the normal damage bomb.

Piercing
This bomb just straight underperforms. It's only saving grace is that (with the death of the old RSS), it's probably the second best bomb at taking out greavers safely. For tackling other enemies weak to pierce this bomb just doesn't make sense. Hitting devilites is a lot more tricky than DBB and even with bonus damage we're talking 5-6 bombs to kill a devilite that DBB two-shots on same depths. The bomb is decent at dealing with wolvers but what isn't? Even though it's capable of dealing with wolvers, it's still slower (video) than a nitronome which has no piercing bonus.

The SSS is awful at dealing with trojans mainly because of the stun bug. You have to play so defensively because you can't get close to the trojan or it'll stun and do an instacharge with no animation. My strategy for trojans was to keep my distance and hit it with double shards on the outer-ring. How did it perform? Well, let's put it this way: a dark retribution was able to kill trojans just as fast (DR/SSS vs Trojans).

Normal
I'll start by saying I don't have the normal damage bomb but it's easy to see what kind of effectiveness it'd have when you just look at the killing power of DCB vs neutral targets. The take away here is that I would never use it against neutral targets because the base damage is terrible.

Elemental
This bomb comes ahead in the pack mostly because it has so little competition in the elemental area. The only other options are the electron vortex or haze bombs but they deal very localized damage whereas the DCB can hit larger areas. I mostly found this bomb to be decent against construct. It can hit puppies and cancel their attacks although I don't think it's as reliable with attack cancel as a max ctr nitronome is. For undead it works well enough against zombies (what doesn't?) but even with elemental damage bonus against undead, it's outperformed by the DBB (video) which deals neutral damage. For kats the bomb is very spotty. You're either lucky and you kill them or you miss over and over. There is really no strategy other than dropping and hoping they move into one of the blasts. (see devilite/kat clear for example of killing speed). I'll probably make a kat-specific DCB video later.

Shadow
I'll say this: These are probably the second and third best shadow bombs not behind a paywall. (Graviton being the more versatile and reliable shadow bomb) The main issue with the SSB/DDMB is that it is NOT good at dealing with polyps. Every time I faced a polyp w/ the SSB I knew that I could possibly wipe because of how inefficient these bombs are at dealing with stationary targets. It's almost as if the old RSS was too good vs non-mobile enemies that they overtuned these to be bad against them. It deals with regular cubes and lichen OK but the long double-fuse makes it not very good against faster lichen and it is kind of a mediocre kite bomb. In some of the jigsaw slime levels this bomb is actually decent because shards (when they appear) stack up in the narrow walkways and can actually hit multiple times instead of whiffing over and over. With that said, I'd still take a DR, nitronome, BAB, irontech over it.

---

These bombs need a major adjustment in damage and it would be nice if they received some love in the radius and fuse departments as well. As of this moment they are probably too difficult to use, too unpredictable, too unreliable and too inefficient for me to recommend to anybody.

I have more information better formatted along with more videos of these bombs in action here:

Eeks' Shard Bombs Observations, Thoughts, and Videos

tl;dr: stay away from normal and pierce shard bombs, feel free to craft shadow and elemental versions if you hate yourself

Sat, 08/18/2012 - 10:47

#882

Softhead

Eeks,

What about grems?

Sat, 08/18/2012 - 14:01

#883

Eeks

Oh yeah. I totally forgot

Oh yeah. I totally forgot about them. The shard bombs work decently against gremlins in small groups (2-4) but I find the timing to be very tricky. Video here. The strategy for thwackers is to drop a bomb then kite the gremlin on to the explosion. This means that you have to dodge a double swing attack while charging a second bomb. From there things get a little more complicated. You have to keep dropping bombs but you have very little control over whether or not you're going to be knocking them down so you have to keep dodging attacks that may or may not come.

When you compare it to what DBB can do against gremlins it becomes no contest. Even nitronome works well when you push stuff against walls.

Regarding damage: It's still not very good. If you go to 2m18s in the gremlin/ssb video here you'll see me get a best-case-scenario against a thwacker. I basically somehow manage to chain him for like 6-8 knockbacks in a row but it still can't out dps a mender. Oh.. and menders. One of the issues with shard bombs is their inability to aim. I kind of talk about it on the wiki page but the deadzone is so big that you have to position yourself perfectly to aim. If you mess up you're either knocking things away from yourself, towards yourself, or completely missing. With menders, they're always moving around so it makes this even trickier. Then you take into account the fact that they can completely run away from you forcing you to restart your bomb (5.7s from charge to main explosion!) This makes bombing with shards very frustrating. This applies to any enemy that moves around quickly.

I had major problems against thwackers when there were groups of 5+ which is very common in decon zones. Another thing is that mistakes are deadly. I didn't find set-up to be very reliable with shard bombs and at times you'd end up just whiffing on a bunch of bombs and having to try to somehow dodge a ton of attacks. Then there are decon zones where there are mecha knights mixed into the fray (see part two of this post)....

----

Another thing that I forgot to point out is that shard bombs are completely one dimensional. Their neutral damage is so bad that you'd never, for example, use a DCB to kill undead or use a SSB to kill construct/beasts. In my comparison videos I mostly only compare shard bombs against enemies that are weak to the respective damage type against either bombs that either neutral to or deal the same bonus damage and it's already skewed so heavily in the favor of other bombs right now that I don't even know what to say. I mean from a technical standpoint is it even fair to compare DCB to DBB against undead? DCB deals elemental damage and gets a huge bonus to damage whereas DBB is piercing and deals neutral damage. But it gets smoked anyway. Imagine clearing the undead with SSS or splinter bomb dealing half that damage. You'd NEVER do it, EVER. It just doesn't make sense.

So when you're gearing up for FSC and you load up your bombs you grab DCB for undead. How do you deal with trojans? Nitronome doesn't have that problem; it can take out slimes, trojans, wolvers, wheels, undead. DBB doesn't have that issue; it can take out trojans, wolvers, and all the undead. So you bring the DCB anyway and then bring a SECOND bomb to take care of everything else. But what's the point? The DCB is a specialty weapon designed to snipe construct/undead but it isn't even better at doing that than the second bomb you're going to bring and it's even worse when looking at evertyhing that isn't construct/undead.

I don't mention any of this in my tests because I wanted to give shard bombs a fair shot but in actual use you're always looking at a two bomb loadout because of how bad they are against their off-bonus damage. I don't think this is really fair to the bombs I've pitted them up against though because if we start talking about 2-bomb loadouts then DBB should get VT on those devilite/kat levels, DBB should get electron vortex in FSC, DR should get AoA in RJP, etc. You get where I'm going with this? All the tests are skewed so heavily in favor of the shard bombs and they're still losing.

-----

Again if you missed it I have a lot more written about these bombs over on my wiki user page along with some more videos against most enemies.

Wed, 08/22/2012 - 08:44

#884

Flami

Bomber needs a friend

I have super blast bomb and swift flourish ( tommorow). Is there some cool bomber to go with me? Tnx

Wed, 08/22/2012 - 18:45

#885

Mahkookeh

Bomber/Swordsman Hybrid

I want to become a bomber/swordsman hybrid, but I can't seem to find a loadout that fit's well into both categories. I'm thinking of volcanic demo helm for ctr with a skolver suit for the damage, and get a trinket slot for ctr swords (electron vortex / brandish), so what I have now is:

Trinket 1: CTR Swords
Trinket 2:
Helm: Volcanic Demo Helm
Amor: Skolver Coat
Shield: GOS with shadow med
Weap 1: Brandish
Weap 2: Electron Vortex
Weap 3:
Weap 4:

So, what do you suggest for my second trinket and my 3rd and 4th weapons, and should I fix anything?

Fri, 08/24/2012 - 09:15

#886

Nordlead

@mahkookeh - just a random

@mahkookeh - just a random suggestion from a hybrid sword/bomb/gun user (in that order).

If you don't mind going glass cannon, I suggest the Chaos Set for armor/helm. it'll give you the same bonuses you have with the setup above + bomb DMG med. Add a bomb CTR Med trinket and a sword DMG Bonus + Swiftstrike (or sword ASI + bts if you want more shield).

That trinket + amor setup gives you (including natural CTR Med of fully heated weapon), Sword DMG VH, Sword CTR VH, Sword ASI Med/High, Bomb DMG Med, Bomb CTR Max!. I use something like this in almost all strata (except fiend, but I have been tempted since I have friends who do it).

As for the 3rd and 4th weapon it depends on what you are trying to kill. Right now you only have elemental weapons. You could round it out with a Acheron for shadow damage and a DBB for pierce. When I solo clockworks and do random danger rooms I typically equip a Combuster, Acheron, Polaris/Sentenza, and DBB. That combo has me ready for anything (I don't seem to run into fiend danger rooms very often so I just use the combuster on them).

EDIT: replaced sentenza as suggested weapon with Acheron because that is what I really meant to type since you don't want guns.

Mon, 08/27/2012 - 00:31

#887

Havenihaveaproblem

Best bomb for when you're cornered?

I'm an aspiring swordmaster but am considering using one bomb in my load out for CC. Namely, when I am cornered due to high volume of monsters or low volume of space, I need something that will buy me either time or space. The scenario that comes most to mind is Legion of Almire, where there is a party pad in a VERY tight space and two of those shielding skeleton warriors spawn right next to you. There is no room to kite, the enemy has a functional shield, and he relentlessly chases you down with powerful, quick, and gap-closing blows so my heavy sword can't push him out of reach. This actually happens frequently throughout the level, where free space to move to is limited, and you are pretty much instantly cornered as soon as you hit the party pad. Sometimes there is a fat Juggernaut or a pair of turrets to boot.

Should I:

a) Use a Shivermist
b) Use a Vortex bomb
c) Use a different bomb
d) Use one of the bombs above but only if I fulfill certain conditions (ie. have specific bomb related UVs, not playing in certain levels)
e) Not use a bomb (possible idea on what I might do instead?)

I am not a 5* yet (current 4*), so perhaps the tactics change later in a manner I don't expect. If you feel that's what I am missing, state answer e. Thank you for your advice!

Mon, 08/27/2012 - 08:18

#888

Eeks

party or solo?

Are you in a party or solo? Shiv works pretty well against the smaller almirian knights as it can freeze them from the front even though they're shielded there because they'll let their shield down to charge up.

It doesn't work as well against the larger ones because they can charge past them and not get frozen so frezing them is a bit trickier.

Vortex works on both but it'll only buy you a little time. If you want to kill them you still have to do old fashioned dodging.

Nitronome works decently against single/groups of knights but you need lateral space to kite (not necessarily dodge but you do have to keep moving away from them so you don't get hit)

I found the BAB to be too slow as far as walking speed goes to dodge or even get away from attacks.

DBB works decently to kill them but it gives you no CC and you have to dodge all their attacks the old fashioned way. DCB is the same. As lon gas you can keep kiting they'll .. eventually die.

Here is a bombs only clear of the four gate room (with respawning bomb zombies): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmhtgGKVMKg
Here is me bombing some almirian knights (nitro, dbb, dcb, stagger storm): http://youtu.be/5NBaYul2gkU

Speaking of the stagger storm, knights won't attack when stunned. Keep in mind that the stun effect from SS is very short though so it isn't great for comboing compared to something like shiv where they'll stay frozen even after mist goes away.

For party play I'd go shiv, vortex, SS depending on what your party wants to do.
For solo I'd probably go vortex or nitro

As far as "creating space" in other levels outside of LoA, I'd recommend vortex or nitro.

Mon, 08/27/2012 - 10:35

#889

Havenihaveaproblem

Awesome Eeks

Thanks for such a thorough response. This was more than I could hope for.

My question was for solo play, btw. I will view their links later as I am in a rush atm. Have a good day!

Sat, 09/01/2012 - 18:09

#890

Zeddy

Today I discovered that I'd rather bring Deadly Splinter Bomb than Dark Briar Barrage to Shadow Lair Gloaming Wildwoods.

DBB loses its ability to knock wolvers on their butts there, but DSB does not.

That is all.

Sat, 09/01/2012 - 20:06

#891

Capt-Chopper

Ima stun you!

I rather kill them in half the time than just knock them around, but its mainly user preference. Though I guess the knock down would be more important when soloing, though Nitronome would probably be better.

Sun, 09/02/2012 - 00:38

#892

Eeks

DSB doesn't have stun

DSB doesn't have stun, that'd be the SSS. But I agree that I'd take killing speed and utility over knockdown.

You should never get hit by wolvers anyway. Just move away from them then to the side and their bites will always miss. Wolvers are one of the easiest enemies to bomb IMO.

Actually getting hits on wolvers w/ shards was a bit spotty imo and the bomb is too one-dimensional. Damage against undead is really bad. I think in my tests I cleared about 2.7-2.8x slower than nitro/dbb against neutral targets with SSS so DSB would be about 2.55-2.6x slower. Not worth it.

Another issue with Snarby SL is that there are that many open spaces where you can take full advantage of the outer radii of the shard bombs which means you risk losing effectiveness on every bomb you drop since shards may or may not appear.

It is user-preference though so whatever floats your boat.

Sun, 09/02/2012 - 07:38

#893

Zeddy

There's more, though

The various shard bombs can also knock down gremlins in danger rooms as well as mecha knights. You can kill things faster with DBB than with Shivermist, does that make DBB a better bomb than Shivermist?

I've got test server access at the moment, and intend to conduct further tests with it during that time.

I'm not, per se, defending the bombs here. I think putting out 6 shard bombs was incredibly sleazy, and I agree about the one-dimensionality. However, slags and jellies are kind of unfair families to make comparisons with these bombs with, as they can't even be interrupted or knocked down as far as I'm aware.

Also think you're overstating the extra time required to kill wolvers using splinter bombs. I practically breezed through shadow lair wolvers with Splinter Bomb.

Sun, 09/02/2012 - 19:13

#894

Zeddy

Tests are in

Popped by Shadow Lair GWW, on the way I rolled by a deconstruction zone. Here are my findings. Keep in mind I was wearing Mercurial Demo Armour, giving a medium damage bonus to bombs, and in retrospect that might've slightly skewed the results:

-Deadly Dark Matter Bomb seems to always knock gremlins on their butts.
-Same with Shocking Salt Bomb.

-Deadly Shard Bomb knocks down gremlins with the shards only, the core explosion did not.
-Same with Deadly Splinter Bomb.

-Deadly Crystal Bomb did diddly squat.

I didn't find a gremlin danger room and searching for one would take forever, but I'm pretty sure the shards at least should still do it.

-Deadly Crystal Bomb did not consistently knock down Mecha Knights even with the shards. You need to hit the knights with two shards at the same time before they fall.
-No other shard bombs did any knockdown at all.

Hitting mecha knights with the shards is really easy. Just run along the shards and the knights will follow you. Apart from that, it's also very easy to bounce a mecha knight away with the core explosion and time it so that he hits the next core.

I met a bunch of slimes otherwise in the stratum. Not much to test interruption and knockdown-power on slimes with apart from Polyps.

-Shocking Salt Bomb and Deadly Dark Matter Bomb both interrupt Polyps with all explosions.
-Neutral shard bombs do with the shards, but that's rather tricky to do consistently.

My results from actual Gloaming Wildwoods:

-Deadly Splinter Bomb and Scintillating Sun Shards both knock down wolvers with the shards, but not the core explosion.
-Radiant Sun Shards did not.

-Deadly Shard Bomb knocks down gremlins with the shards only, the core explosion didn't cut the mustard for it.
-Same with Deadly Splinter Bomb.

-Shadow Lair lumbers do not get knocked back by shard bombs as much as a centimeter, Crystal Bomb included. Advantage?

I draw the following conclusions:
-Normal damage Shard Bombs are absolutely useless. I was expecting them to carry more stopping power to make up for their low damage, but it seems OOO didn't put as much thought into these bombs as I had believed they had.
-Deadly Crystal Bomb was pretty sweet at killing undead in general. Constructs too.
-I can only think of a single reason to get Dark Matter Bomb over Shocking Salt Bomb, and I'd rather just get DR for Quicksilvers anyway.
-I also found the stun on Sun Shards to be incredibly useful for crowd control, and not once did the stun bug affect me. It may have to do with the way you move to use these bombs efficiently, so it has more value for solo bombing than in a team. Once stun bug gets fixed, I don't think I'll leave home without them.
-Shard Bombs are horrid on their own when menders are involved.

Sun, 09/02/2012 - 19:45

#895

Eeks

DSB vs DBB

Zeddy

Oh, it's usable for sure. How competitive it is is up in the air though especially since you sacrifice damage against 4 families instead of 2. The clears are still slower than DBB though. I did a side-by-side-by-side comparison of them here: dbb vs nitro vs sss.

As for knocking down gremlins in danger rooms, I'm not sure how useful that is when actually hitting them is very tricky. I gave up on SSB really quickly against gremlins. I did 15 runs into OCH w/ SSB only and it just wasn't effective at all. Thwackers move way too much to reliably knock them down with the outer ring. Sometimes you get multiple knockbacks but it doesn't matter when menders can easily avoid the bombs. In between the time of bomb drop and outer explosion, the mender is gone. I don't think it's good against gremlins at all.

As for shiv vs DBB. I think that comparison is really lousy. We're talking about very similar weapons here. Both these bombs do pierce damage and their main function is dealing damage. There is really no reason why the SSS/DSB should be consistently slower to kill against all enemies weak to pierce. You can look at stuff like DA vs Combuster and see strengths and weaknesses; the shard bombs are just weak.. period.

The only bomb vs bomb tests I conducted where shard bombs actually won were SSS vs DR against trojans (and only by 1-2 sec while tying multiple times) and DCB vs VT/Electron Vortex (those aren't even pure damage bombs) and it only won by several seconds.

The bombs need a huge rework; I'm not sure there is a lot to defend and let's get one thing straight: I never said you couldn't kill stuff with them. I have like 15-20 videos of me doing clears with the bombs so it's not like it's impossible, it just isn't optimal.

Mon, 09/03/2012 - 02:59

#896

Zeddy

Eeks Both these bombs do

Eeks: Both these bombs do pierce damage and their main function is dealing damage.

That's an assumption, though! I assume differently. Why would we need two piercing damage bombs? We don't. My assumption is that this is a damage/support hybrid, sacrificing raw killing power for an increased amount of explosions (which is helpful because it makes it easier to hit around shielded enemies, and once you get the shard chain going, you get more attacks in total.) The bombs are pretty highly specialized, which is kind of both their strength and weakness.

Do these bombs desperately need an overhaul to compete with other bombs? Yes, they kind of do. However, I don't think touching the fuse time is the right way to do it. Instead, the support part of it needs further emphasizing.
-Remove the [silly] hard-coded shard hit limit.
-Slightly increase blast radius of shards.
-Bump up salt bomb and sun shard damage by 20 on the shards so they match the other bombs.
-Now we get to the magic! Crystal Bomb gets undead bonus and freeze. Splinter Bomb gets beast bonus and increased damage in general. Dark Matter Bomb gets gremlin bonus and poison. Shard Bomb gets the stopping power increased so that even just one shard can put down Mecha Knights and inflicts fire.

I haven't tried SSB in OCH yet, but I have tried DR and DBB there. DR is just rubbish against gremlins, in general, and DBB was countered by the huge open spaces and gremlin AI as well. I found myself quickly resorting to busting out Shivermist and let my teammates do all the gremlin-killing in both cases.

Mon, 09/03/2012 - 04:16

#897

Eeks

It's an assumuption I made

It's an assumuption I made based on what we have. The bombs primarily do damage and I think their cumbersome and unpredictable knockback make them bad support bombs. In the case of DBB vs SSS/DSB, for example, DBB can deal damage without disrupting the battlefield while the SSS/DSB is completely chaotic. Maybe if stun gets fixed (hah) and becomes a great status to have then things can change but then we're going to make even more assumptions.

I found it really bad against shielded enemies, especially large ones where shard collisions prevent shards from wrapping around enemies. Against trojans, for example, bombing just didn't work. I tried it against mortafires it ALMOST worked but agaisnt walls shards don't reliably appear.

I think making these damage-support bombs is an interesting idea but if DCB had freeze with larger explosions, why would you ever use shivermist? If DMB had grem+poison why would you ever use VV? In fact, I think that would make VV the worst bomb in the game.

I'm not really sure how to fix these bombs. I think the most straight forward band-aid that we could get as soon as possible would be to adjust the 2nd fuse so that you can combo on single bombs, fix/remove shard hit limits, buff damage slightly, buff neutral damage majorly, increase inner radius and increase radius on out-shard hits, tone down knockback on outer-shards. This stuff is pretty pointless to discuss though because I have a feeling OOO is going to do nothing or we won't see changes for 8-12 months (see bomb feedback thread to see how long it took them to even mess with DBB/BAB/etc).

---
Re: Gremlins

I think you need to work on your bombing vs gremlins. DR is a good against gremlins because it can snipe out menders and will quickly break their shields. You can use it to kite with as well since thwackers will never hit you as long as you're moving away from them and they'll keep running into the rings. For the DBB you need to circle strafe around so that they're all facing the bomb. DR is great for the section of OCH with the machine that has a shield since the DPS on it is so high you can snipe it out really fast. I was unable to even get past the first part of OCH with SSB after 15 tries then soloed the entire 5 depths with DBB and DR so IDK.

Mon, 09/03/2012 - 06:15

#898

Snarfalarkus

Wanting to be a Pure Bomber

I'm in a pickle choosing armor for my bombing needs ever since Volcanic Demo Suit was buffed. I run FSC a lot as a swordsman, so I'm familiar with spawn points and what not. I straight forward dish out damage, so i was thinking about getting full Mad Bomber. But then i noticed the Volcanic set has CTR VH, so I'm able to have more protection but less damage. Should I go MB and roll status UVs or Volcanic and use bomb trinkets?

Mon, 09/03/2012 - 08:54

#899

Zeddy

@Eeks

We have Shocking Salt Bombs right now and I still find myself using Voltaic Tempest depending on circumstances. The radius buff I had in mind would not be particularly large. The VV is a pretty valid point. OOO needs to stop treating all statuses as equals and give that one a longer duration or a larger radius or something. Besides, statuses on these bombs aren't a certain thing. With haze bombs it's pretty much guaranteed, and you get a persistent status carpet lasting for a while. During this while, other weapons can be used whereas with shard bombs you pretty much just have to stick to them.

I agree on the bombs being pretty horrid against mortafires, but I found them to be very effective against Thwackers. For some reason, I can walk nearly unharmed through Devilite levels on a 2-bar connection using Sun Shards, too. There's something about the rate of explosions going off and the exact spread of the shards that almost always makes devilites get constantly interrupted by them in a way DBB does not.

Re: Re: Gremlins
When I tried DR on battle pods the orbs did not damage them in the slightest. I concur on it being pretty useful against shielded menders, but they usually just run away from it otherwise. I'll do a shard bomb run of OCH right now and see how it works out.

Edit:
I did that now. Only brought Shocking Salt Bomb as I don't have Deadly Crystal Bomb on my regular server character and OCH wasn't available on the test server. At first it went horrible. I trapped a mortafire into a corner, and the shard that popped in behind him didn't hit anyway. The initial explosion stops short of the barracks so you have to run into the steel wire and take a bar of damage to destroy them if you want to use the bomb for it. It kinda sucked against turrets.

I honestly can't tell you how, why or when it started going right, but at some point it suddenly did. It wasn't concious, but after a bit of trying I was able to herd mortafires around so that I killed them faster than I could've done with a sword. Crowds of Thwackers and Knockers shred up like paper before a flamethrower. Sometimes I'd manage to destroy a barrack with a shard but mostly I just ran up to them and took a hit. It was okay against turrets.

I didn't go any further after the first stage, 'cause I only had the ME for that one floor. I'll do a full OCH run when I get my DCB. Have a feeling the battle pods are going to be awful.

Another edit:
If I was to give one general advice for the shard bombs, it's that there is a very good reason for the long fuse time on the outer shards. You can use the core blast from the next bomb you plant to bump enemies into the shards of the previous bomb. It's not about predicting where the enemy will be. You have to control them. The result is that enemies knocked about from shard to blast to shard will be unable to move or retaliate. Unfortunately, it only works that well on gremlins, devilites and to some extent wolvers.

Mon, 09/03/2012 - 14:08

#900

Eeks

Post some Videos!

I'd love to see what you've figured out against gremlins. I had the opposite experience with thwackers. It seemed that if I was able to get them knocked down then everything went great but if I didn't then I'd never knock them down and it required me to dodge their swings for 6 seconds which I never have to do with other bombs. If you've figured out the magic sauce behind shard bombs, I'd love to see it.

Re: Devilites: You can kite devilites into DBB and never get hit as well and it kills them faster.

Also, I'd like to see a bomb pattern that works against kats because I couldn't figure that out.

As far as changes to this bomb goes, this discussion is pretty pointless IMO. I don't think OOO will ever go in your direction with full status damage bombs and they're even unlikely to buff/fix the bombs my way either. The most we might see is a small damage buff or fuse buff in 8 months so what's the point of even discussing these things?

The problem I see is that OOO doesn't have a very good balance team and they have a poor way of testing their changes (test server) and a poor way of receiving feedback from test server (they don't, really). Big changes like this will never happen. I don't think they have any devs that play the game very much so making something like the SSS, going down a depth and using it on a couple of levels is something that might happen but thoroughly testing it against all enemies is something that obviously didn't happen (how can you explain neutral vs bonus damage? it makes no sense). Another thing are oddities in weapon damage like DBB and Nitro w/ max damage both take the same amount of hits to kill greavers at D24. A proper balancing would never have this scenario occur.

The way I see it, we should be begging for the path of least resistance when it comes to making these bombs usable. Focus on aspects that are easy to adjust and have clear ramifications for what those adjustments will do. Reworking a weapon in too many ways will just lead to iron slug 2.0 (will never happen). But again, I've lost hope that we'll ever see "fixes" to these bombs as I've been down this road before (see bomb feedback thread) so they are what they are.

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