Further testing reveals that shocking salt bomb does not always knock gremlins over with the core blast. I'm unsure whether or not bomb damage bonus will help or if a Dark Matter Bomb would not suffer from this problem. The latter means I'd definitely want a DMB.
When used at the beginning of stratum 5, they get knocked over by the core blast, but at the beginning of stratum 6 you need to hit them with shards. For me, that tips them from "Better than DBB" to "Terrible".
(deleted)
Didn't mean to make anyone upset. I'm an aspiring bomber myself. And on my way to getting my ideal gear got some things I'm not interested in. Someone recommended I post in here, where other bombers are most likely to check, to have a better chance of getting rid of them.
I apologize if I was misinformed.
Because I hate myself.
Got a Heavy Crystal Bomb, it's about level 3 now. Tested it in LoA.
-It's okay against zombies.
-Works decently against howlitzers.
-It might be a matter of technique, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out a way to do anything with crusaders without horribly dying. I think it's hands-down the worst non-shadow weapon you could use against them, really. The first one I met was in a tight corridor, even, so I was hoping to hit him with a lot of shards. It's a really heavy kick in the nuts considering old RSS used to one-shot them if you got them to step on it. :\
-I managed to kill deadnaughts with it, but only after everything else in the room.
-If you're fighting spookats, and only spookats, I found a couple of techniques for taking them out without much fuzz. If there is a wall, or even better a corner, just spam some bombs there and the cats are going to nearly always land on some of the shards. After they get there, move to a different wall and bait them into it. Even without using walls, spookats fly a fairly set distance, and you can use that knowledge to spam bombs there, wait inside the ring and then walk onto the ring after the cat fly over so they'll bite their way into the ring.
If there are bombies or something there you're basically screwed, though. Spam bombs and hope for the best.
-Oh, and using it around bombies is suicide. Like you needed me to tell you that.
I also did a run with a fellow bomber in my guild. I think an avenue worth exploring is having multiple people spam these bombs. He had deadly dark matter, and I had shocking salt bombs. Gremlins were falling over all over the place as there were constant explosions everywhere. Since the knockback is considerably less than blast bombs, you can keep bombing in a smaller area for a better general effect. Obviously they'll stack better than (similar) haze bombs since you can't doubly apply status effects, and you usually only need one vortex bomb so it should stack better than that, too.
I have doubts 4 splinter bombs will outperform 4 DBBs, though, not to mention 4 dark matter bombs against 4 DRs.
The technique I found works best is to just kite them around. It's actually one of the safer ways to bomb them if you have the room. It's slow though, just like everything with shard bombs.
I think I kill crusaders w/ shard bombs somewhere in there. Considering you can 1 shot charge w/ Blitz in 3 man and charge+1 in 4 man, bombing crusaders is probably a good way to get your teammates to hate you though unless you're exploiting their derp behavior under stun w/ stagger storm.
Great kat tip; I haven't had a lot of success against them so I'll try that out. As far as competing with 4 DBBs, you're right, it's probably not possible because of how well DBBs synergize and attack cancel.
So has anyone had chance to extensively test Stagger Storm since the stun fixes?
I've used it everywhere I get the chance, between LD and CW and have found absolutely no problems. Works as advertised, w/o the bug. Was great before, amazing now~
I said on last page I'd attempt a full OCH run using only shard bombs once I got my Deadly Crystal Bomb.
I have that now, so I've been trying. For the most part, the run actually went very smoothly! Then I died. Points of note:
-Against gremlins in particular, tight spaces are crucial for shard bomb use. Do not fight mortafires or menders in open areas! Shieldbump your target into a corner and keep them there. During the 40 minutes I spent getting halfway through the second floor before dying, at least 20 minutes were spent fruitlessly chasing after mortafires before I realized I should be shieldbumping. Shieldbumping won't make mortafires easy, but it should make them tolerable.
-Against knockers, simply run in a tight little pattern and spam bombs. The knockers will die on their own. Not like knockers needed a strategy.
-For thwackers, I find myself 'jousting' them. Plant a bomb, bait an attack and then run past them so they can't turn around far enough to hit you with their second attack. You're not guaranteed to hit them, but it'll work out.
-This same pattern works with ghostmanes. I'm going to make a pretty bold claim here: Shocking Salt Bomb is the single best weapon you could possibly use against ghostmanes. They will get hit and their chances of escaping and surviving approaches zero. If the shards don't get them, the shock will. When fighting a handful of ghostmanes, you will have to dodge maybe two attacks before the battle is effectively won. I don't even remember DBB being this efficient against them.
-I didn't end up using the DCB much. Any turrets were so packed with gremlins that by the time I'd taken them out with SSB, the turret was already gone.
I died in the fight with the battlepod on the second floor from simply being overwhelmed. To be fair, that part is pretty brutal with bombs in general. I think this is a problem that can be solved by simply throwing even more bombs at it. If anyone from Europe would like to try a shard-bombs only run of OCH, send me a message somehow! IGN is Zeddy. It's preferred if you have a shadow shard bomb, but I think sun shards could work out if that's all you've got.
Sounds fun, Zeddy. I don't have the shadow shards (as, after I made SSS and DCB I realised that shards are pretty much not worth the money) but still have SSS and ISB from the old days.
Ofc, another option would be to have vortexes thrown into that mix. That, I think would be fun to try, if you're game ;)
It does sound like fun, but it feels a bit like cheating. Then again, considering how much I've died on these shard bombs only runs, I don't really think I'd be proving anything anymore.
ISB is a shadow shard bomb, it should do, if you're interested. I should be available after work today, which I'm done with in 8 hours from now.
Well, the shards are notoriously restricted in their usefulness, it's up to us, as the players, to...cheat! To find ways to make bad things work better. And it never occurred to me 'till I read your post, but a wee vortex+shard combo might be a good laugh on a crowd of Gremlins and may just work out nicely, especially when they try to dodge....>.>
Although one thing i'd say about the shards is that their effectiveness should increase drastically with more people using them; it doesnae seem like the type of weapon suited for just one bomber, especially with their stupid hit limits. Introduce a few more of them to the mix and you're essentially creating a minefield that should vastly improve the results, so if you want to try a pure shard run again, then I reckon that having more bombers would have different/better results than running solo (there may yet be something to prove).
Buuut then again, throwing a blackhole in the middle of that may just work even better. Or worse. I've honestly no idea, will need to see it in action.
I'll have a wee think about other combos shards could be used with.
All I've tried recently is alternating between shards and blast bombs in LD to keep a perimeter around a CP, but you have to actually wait otherwise the blast goes off at the same time as the shards and leaves a huge vulnerable gap. Ofc, waiting is just as bad, so I'm starting to think that that theory is overly flawed. I've also considered stagger+SSS to keep a perpetual stun going, but haven't tried it yet in either CW or LD. I think it'd probably just make CW a slower, more accurate version of the exact same thing w/o the stagger, but am kinda curious to test in LD; might be the way to land shard hits~
Have added you in SK (I think?) and we'll get a run going whenever we're next both on. Idk if I'll be awake in 8 hours, but will be on after that and all day tomorrow, in all likelihood~
If anyone from Europe would like to try a shard-bombs only run of OCH, send me a message somehow! IGN is Zeddy. It's preferred if you have a shadow shard bomb, but I think sun shards could work out if that's all you've got.
If I can muster up the modicum of motivation to meander to the crafting machine and forge another shard bomb, I'd be up for this. At least assuming the emotional repercussions of spending anymore cr/ce on said line of weaponry didn't break me entirely.
I wouldn't blow CE on just this. It's mostly for people who already have wasted their resources on these duds and would like to see if there's some mileage to get out of them somehow.
Aye, I'm still up for it. I've been playing around with combos in LD to try and find ways to make shards worthwhile...or even just work...at all...
I've always loved bombing since I got my first bomb wayyy back when I first started playing with a couple friends. They all went swords or guns or a mix of the 2. I just couldn't pull myself away from bombing .It was the least played of the three yet always seemed the most useful. Mass Status conditions and destroying waves and waves of enemies at a time in a game like SK seemed perfect.
Then one day I finally looked at the bombing guide and saw the Elite Bomber part. The Perfect equipment. The Epic stuff. It was mad far away but I worked and worked for a long time now and I almost had it all. Everything but the UVs basically. And then they changed the RSS. Can the Deadly Crystal Bomb really replace it or is there a better bomb to go there? Or will it never work as well as it did? For the first time in awhile I actually feel like i have to use a sword or a gun. I want to have my perfect bombing setup back.
Can the Deadly Crystal Bomb really replace it
In a word: no.
is there a better bomb to go there?
Also no.
Simply put, dps bombers who want to do anything outside Wolver Dens took a pretty big hit. However, there are a few of us who are working to find the best methods to deploy the new shards and trying to find any secret methods and tricks or niches that suit them.
Thus far, the closest I've come to a revelation is that shard bombs are amplified in effect by multiple users; shards become a lot scarier when there are two or more bombers spreading them. Mixing them with hazes has been shown to work as well.
Look who I found in Haven petitioning to have Zeddy officially renamed to "Venom Veiler virgin".
Also I was going to write a really long post about why the Big Angry Bomb is actually seriously underrated but I've found myself struck by procastination, so my advice is if you have one, try it out more. 'specially in the Unknown Passage and Shadow Lairs, it's so much better with party synchronization that Nitronome is.
Also I was going to write a really long post about why the Big Angry Bomb is actually seriously underrated...
YESSSS! I have never gotten to try this puppy along with someone else also using it. Perhaps we could do that sometime!
Edit: Seems my venom veiler virginity status came from The Rawrcake
Gonna give a shout to Darkbrady and Mentlegen for those Lockdown games earlier, pretty great having so many bombers in a random game. Even if Brady is a shameless traitor who uses a Polaris. Or something.
Incidentally just got 8154 bombing with Nitro & VT, it's surprisingly easy to abuse hammer-users by placing bombs covering just about all the ranges they can dash to. It saddens me though that eventually people wisen up to the fact that Nitro does so little damage that they can simply tank the hits if they can hit you, and will eventually win. I really need to try out Mercurial and see if the movement speed helps at all.
shameless traitor who uses a Polaris
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I discovered that when you're bombing and someone whips out a polaris, the best thing to counter it with is a faster polaris! Seriously. And I don't feel as bad using it for the dual reason of:
a/ I primarily use it against others who don't care so much and just step aside, whereas when it gets used against us bombers, it 100% shuts us down.
b/ I'm a bomber, and it's a better bomb than any other bomb I have. If I could shoot nitros that shocked 3/sec, people would scream bloody murder about how OP bombers are.
Besides, I'm not above using weapons that give me an edge. You use heart trinkies; they're worse than polaris! How MANY of my Hail charges did you soak up? :<
But aye; great fun (and a nice change) to have so many bombers in a match, same team or otherwise :)
I just love when people start complaining that bombers are OP when we get in a wee group :3
EDIT: the mspd really doesnae do that much, imo. I'd say your current loadout is better (shy of the shock immunity). I'm buildin' a Bombastic myself; am just tryin' to ragecraft some parts first. Until I get solid UVs, I'm happy with my shock-stunwalker set~
I'm working on a Polaris for the same reasons Brady says up there; it's a great way to protect your neck when capping.
And yeah, once you get two or three of us on a team...well, there goes the neighbourhood, apparently.
(also dang, shock-stun. I was silly and went with shock-freeze; maybe if I get lucky UV crafts I'll make one of those too.)
I'm very new to bombing and was thinking about making a BAB myself. I don't know if I should upgrade my spike shower to DBB or make a BAB first..
But I'm definitely getting stagger. Thanks for the games, hope to see you again sometime.
And yeah, once you get two or three of us on a team...well, there goes the neighbourhood, apparently.
Ikr? As much as dps bombing is nerfed, and people don't care for bombers for low damage etc etc, it's usually the first thing people look at at the beginning of matches: "is the bomber on my team?". Having two or three bombers together absolutely shifts the tide of a game, especially if they work well together and mix bombs. We had a stun/VT/shiver combo going for a lot of it and people just fell to pieces around us. Especially with the nitro and trolly. Although was great fun when there were 2 bombers on each team; made for good competition between us. Well, I was cheeky and just walked through all the bombs since no one else brought a shiver <3
I was silly and went with shock-freeze
Well getting three immunities is not easy/cheap. I went with stun partly because it's a Justifier suit with a stun UV so it not only can be used in my gunner set, but also lets me max off my polaris asi, which i feel is a massive help.
Most bombers carry stagger/VT with them and tend not to bring shiver becasue of all the skolvers, so it's not as essential, however if you find a bomber who does have shiver, you'd honestly rather have the freeze immunity over stun. Stun can be dealt with and you can power through it, especially as a recon, but freeze is as lethal as it is to any other class. Echoez, for example, was a pain today because I can usually out-bomb any bomber with my loadout, but she has shiver immunity, which tends to be my go-to bomb for other bombs (since most of them don't bother w/ shiver immunity) so left me needing to use others.
However, similarly, if the shiver immunity comes at the cost of shock or something else, you may not find a use for it more matches.
Basically, it's more useful, less often if you get me.
(Ik i went on a bit there, just wanted to affirm that it wasn't a waste; you will like it, you just won't get to use it that much. Although it does help against gunners by reducing chances/timers from Hail)
However, shock is all but a must, if possible. Almost every bomber carries a VT with them and it's the only one that severely interrupts you and cuts out your invinci frames. Since we don't get them with charging we really don't need even more time spent without them.
I contemplated trying to make an Ice Queen set with Shock UVs since that'd give immunity to all three of the big status bombs on top of coming with built in-pierce resist and looking pretty cool. I may still go ahead with that actually, it'd be nice to have a set to switch into for countering opposing bombers, and it may well be worth the loss of the damage bonus (Although I do kill quite a lot more people with Nitro than I've seen any bomber do without Bombastic, not to mention I think mine looks pretty cute).
I may also make one of the 'new' shard bombs to try in Lockdown, may be a futile effort but I think either Shocking Salt Bomb or Scintillating Sun Shards could actually work relatively well thanks to their additional status infliction. Although that's just conjecture on my part, but it's not as though there's much else to do dps-wise, Nitro outclasses basically everything just because of its speed.
e: I actually did have Shiver equipped, in the later matches (Swapped out BAB since it just wasn't helping) but since basically half the teams were Skolver it just wasn't good enough, everytime I tried to drop one it seemed the Skolvers just flocked like moths to an extremely cold flame.
On that tangent, I think BAB would be so much more useful if the radius indicator was removed. I mean it obviously benefits all bombs, but alternating between Nitro and BAB can completely throw off people's timing; I've actually found that the better the player the more effective the combo is since they react based on their reflexes and sense of time. Once people realize you're doing it they immediately what the marker and the whole tactic becomes useless, at which point BAB just becomes dead weight.
Omg, I never realised that before. Since it had two resistances I just figured it to be halved (like Snarbolax is not immune to freeze, for example). I never actually realised that it had full "max" resistance per part. That's craziness, and a beautiful idea.
I will steal it, if you don't mind~
I don't use damage bonuses on my haze loadouts anyways, since I honestly don't feel it's worth losing my current immunities; I was making the bombastic for my dps bomber loadouts (so I don't have to rely on my Mad Bomber, and can have a dps anti-bomber of sorts).
Speaking of which, the shard bombs, as Zeddy and I have discussed in our Shard thread, work exponentially better in groups, and I've been trying to test this in LD, but with a lack of willing/able bombers (and the lack of being able to get on the same team) this is tricky to test. I tried it with Tohlevi all of one match and the results were actually pretty good; it didn't take long before we started getting spammer QQs, and the shock/stun spread happens pretty quickly. Damage overall is fairly low, but teh statuses and KB cause chaos, especially when cycling hazes between them. It was really hard for us to get into a group when tehre were already people, but once we got set up, it took them a long time, and a large group to get rid of us again.
EDIT: I did notice the shiver later, but since it was so many matches later I figured it was just a different loadout. I suppose you just never used it knowing I had it, as it's not really a status that "stacks" like VT does.
Also, changing up stuff really does wonders in LD, since peoples reactions are (as you say) based on instinct of experience and pre-empting. I was noticing that especially today doing my AA gunning experiment and realising that standing still had people at a total loss, as they were running circles around a stationary me, trying to attack where they thought I was going to move. You'd be amazed how thrown off people get by just...not dodging~
This, also, is another thing that helps with shards. People haven't had time to adjust to it and develop muscle memory for avoiding it, or for learning the timing, and allow themselves to get hit by them quite a lot~
The rocket puppy room in FSC can be fairly easily soloed using only a blast bomb, as the blasts tend to eat up rockets.
I was going to record it, but none of the video-recording methods I tried out were working out. Which is just as well since I played like arse when I tried recording it anyway.
I imagine two people stacking blasties in there would stay pretty safe.
I was wondering what sword I should bring on my pure bombing solo vana hehehehehehehehe
Depends on what you're equipping really. If you're taking vortex then a Glacius or Voltedge is the obvious choice, otherwise a Warmaster Rocket Hammer is the best sword you could take. If you don't have Crimson Hammer or a Brandish-line, a Leviathan Blade or Dread Venom Striker are pretty generally effective in firestorm.
Only thing I'd like to point out is, if you're only taking one "wildcard" weapon (And on that technicality, you're not actually doing a "pure bomb" run) you're going to have difficulty with vanaduke since he really is not a friendly fight for players with no guns. If you're taking non-bombs then bringing a Blitz Needle would be your best choice for both the citadel and vana.
All bombs for a solo vana?
Get nitro + Shiv to start.
Because 'sprosions and ice work all too well together.
Then once you grow a few eyebrows (just to singe back off anyway) grab an Irontech/BAB, launch suckers across the room. And swap out that nitro for some vortex action. Seriously... it's fun to toss things around like you're the big baddy and vana's just in your playground... til you get mace-mash-fever-vana...
Then run.
Anyway. Vana in all is summed up by this order of importance Blast>Vortex/Ice>Guns>Swords>Non-shiver haze>Shardbombs
When you get some chesthairs, I'll take you up on a Scintillating Sun Shards run. Fencing jacket + cyclops cap need apply. Trust me, you'll need some time for snacks after d27 cause d28 will be wonderful..... not.
So I have all 4 * gear on my bomber account and was wondering what the best set in the game was? I was looking at the bomber guide on the wiki and their epic bomber list says this
UV Vhigh CTR Bombs (Whatever your favourties are) Stagger Storm, Ash of Agni, Shivermist Buster, Venom Veiler and Voltaic Tempest
At least one Vortex
Nitronome, Dark Briar Barrage
Deadly Crystal Bomb
Mercurial Demo Helm with Fire or Shadow resistance [Even both!]
Mercurial Demo Suit with Freeze or Pierce resistance [Even both!]
2x Elite Boom Mod Trinkets
2x Elite Bomb Mod Trinkets
Now is this still true or have there been patches that make this portion rather dated? (Outside of the shard bombs because I know they were patched.)
Bomber guide is kind of subjective, but it's true that wearing merc demo, two boom modules and having VH CTR uvs on all your bombs give max CTR, max damage and a bit of running speed to boot.
Even without CTR UVs, I like Merc demo because it lets you run around safely while charging bombs, even if they do take longer to charge. Gives you time to think.
Is solo bombing still viable? I left the game for a while, and when I came back, the old shards were gone. If I am not mistaken, those were the best way to not get your face shot off by turrets. Is there anything I can do, as a f2p 3* player, to solo with nothing but bombs?
I can't off the top of my head think of anywhere in particular that'd be really bad to solo bomb, except a couple of specialty rooms in Scarlet Fortress where having a gun would be pretty nice. Turrets can mostly be taken care of just fine by dodging their first burst and interrupting the rest of them with a blast bomb or something.
The biggest problem, if you want to stick purely to just bombs going solo, would be dealing with any boss but the Jelly King. Roarmulus has some switch puzzles where a gun or a sword would make things a whole lot easier on you, Snarbolax has the bell, and all of them can be made a lot easier with the damage output of other weapons.
Nothing impossible, though. I killed Vanaduke using just bombs earlier today, though I was in a party. Voltaic Tempest and Nitronome is pretty much all you need for that one.
Okay then. Right now I have a Super Blast Bomb, Spine Bomb, Rock Salt Bomb, Super Crystal Bomb, Splinter Bomb, Toxic Vaporizer, and Electron Vortex, as well as the Fused Demo Set and a Great Defender. Where do I go from here?
Consider getting another shield. You're at 3* still where changing that would still be fairly cheap. Owlite or Plate Shield are pretty good all-arounders. Defender has pretty much nothing to offer over other piercing shields, or shields in general really.
When you say Electron Vortex, do you mean that or just Electron Charge? It seems a bit odd to have that one bomb at 5* while everything else is 3*.
Upgrading your bomber armour goes a long way, and Nitronome is a very good all-around bomb that you can use for pretty much anything. Do you know which path you'd like to take with the bomber armour? Do you like the style of shard bombs? Do you prefer the knockbacky style of blast bombs or are you more comfortable kiting enemies using no-knockback bombs like spine cone?
Okay, I will see about getting the Owlite Shield, and yes, Electron Charge, not Electron Vortex.
I was thinking that I would go with the Mad Bomber set, and I like both the shard bombs and the blast bombs.
Shard bombs gain a hefty increase in damage compared to other weapons. You'll find they'll be very worth using if you're going full Mad Bomber. Remember to stock up on remedy pills! Now let's see.. some things to be concerned about:
-Shard bombs are pretty good damage bombs if you're have at least a VH damage bonus, but they have severe weaknesses. You will want either a DBB or a Nitronome to fill the gaps, such as attacking turrets over low walls (like the Roarmulus, do not attempt to pureshard Roarmulus as this will be impossible), fighting greavers and hitting Vanaduke through the fireballs. You should definitely get that Super Blast Bomb upgraded to Nitronome maybe as your first 5* weapon. You could also still turn it into an Irontech or a BAB.
BAB is more of a supporting bomb for clearing up some breathing room for your party, but Irontech is a real option. It charges as fast as Nitronome while dealing more damage, but you move a whole lot slower while doing it. The longer fuse also means you will have to be able to dodge enemies while charging for two bomb charges instead of just one before your chain gets going.
I'd say it depends on what you want to do your primary damage with. If you'd like to go shardbombing for your damage, just get Nitro for the utility of it.
-Damage-wise, Elemental damage is just better than other types of damage. Upgrading the Crystal Bomb will let you fight slags with much bravado when you eventually reach Firestorm Citadel. They go down quick if you're solo.
-Keep upgrading that Salt Bomb! The damage output won't be as high as with Crystal Bomb, but the crowd control value of the shock is well worth it. You can even use it against quicksilvers if you have a lot of shield or are just plain good at dodging ping-pong quicksilvers. The thing is that they are able to hurt other enemies when shocked, so you can use that to your advantage. When there's just one left, finish it off with a different weapon.
-You'll want a bomb of each damage type eventually. One option is to upgrade that splinter bomb. I recommend Sun Shards, as the damage loss is only equal to around a medium damage bonus (on fiends, this is made back up due to the bomb's inherent fiend bonus, even though half of it gets wasted with mad bomber), while stun is a pretty useful status.
The other option is to keep going with Spine Cone. It's a lot easier to use and able to hit Vanaduke through his fireballs. It also does no knockback, which is more appreciated in a party-situation but can still be pretty nice as it won't hinder your damage output like the knockback on Nitro does. Spine Cone tends to be appreciated more by bombers than Sun Shards these days, as the shard bombs are difficult to use for their maximum potential.
Well, Hello! I'm a fairly experienced 2* Bomber with the following bombs:
(Slime damage bonus)
Bomb-Related Recipies are as follows:
As for Armor, I only have the Spiral Demo set, with a plain defender as a shield.
Now, any tips? I've read every article in this thread, but due to horrible memory, I might forget some stuff. So yep!
Honestly its what ever you feel comfortable with. Bombing in parties you are going to want to use bombs that do not impede your party. Make the Shivermist and the Ash of Agni, they are great for support and solo. I cant say too much about the shard line as I dont really use them.
Nitronome is going to be your damage bomb of choice, for its spammability. Dark Briar Barrage is good in parties because it doesnt knockback, but it also has the same damage output and spammability as Nitronome so you could really choose one or the other. I rather like the knockback when soloing, added safety. Just be careful not to knock enemies into yourself.
A vortex bomb such as the Graviton or the Electron are good combo bombs, really only useful if you plan on getting weapon slots and using multiple bombs as by themselves they don't do much damage. Purely utility. Electron is slightly better than Graviton because of its status effect but acquiring the needed recipes for to finish the line requires you to do alot of PVPing. These bombs are purely utility.
For armor its up to you. Honestly the Mad Bomber set is like wearing 2* armor. You get hit once and like half your health is gone. Unless you are going to do a lot of party playing wear other teammates can revive you I would advise against getting Mad Bomber for soloing, you will die a LOT!! Make Volcanic and get trinkets.
I actually made a ctr trinket early on, and I must say it helped a lot until i got my Mad Bomber set. I basically had ctr ultra in 3 star gear with the 4* ctr trinket.
Get a shield with high defense and health if you get hit a lot. Plate shields, Owlite line for status resist. To help with bombing I actually dont rely on my shield, as I carry a Swifty. That way you learn to move through crowds and place bombs without getting hit. Learn to shield bump enemies in and out of your way.
You should make your bombs first, as they will help you clear rooms faster. Unless you find yourself getting hit a lot. Jelly King and FSC are going to be your money makers so make loadouts geared towards those 2 missions. For JK Nitronome and Ash are basically all you need. For FSC your gonna want to have the Volcanic set with Shivermist and Nitronome. Of course party play you can swap out for Dark Briar. I would shoot for the Voltaic Tempest after you get your main bombs because its really Usefull in fsc when coupled with a vortex bomb.
@Blakknite, I have to disagree about the Shivermist. Freeze can be one of the most disruptive things for party play. The disruption is the worst with the Shivermist because it will re-freeze enemies after you attack them. I would definitely encourage getting an Ash.
Vortex bombs are far from utility only. Their damage is decent and the suction allows you to easily hit many enemies.
Shard bombs can be slow and cumbersome in solo play but they pair up very well wit vortexes and other shard bombers in party play.
Mad bomber is not as bad as you make it out to be (although right now it is inferior to Chaos). If you are confident in your dodging and shielding, go for it. I'd suggest you get up to 4* and play for a bit at that level to see where your skill and playstyle are.
That maybe so, however it is still a very usefull bomb. Knowing how to lock down enemies is essential when using the Shiver. The Voltaic Tempest in my opinion is the only other haze bomb that can compare to Shiver. It can both disrupt enemy attacks and deal damage over time.
Yes vortex bombs deal a decent bit of damage, but its not very practical to use them as such. Other bomb lines do a better job at that. Thus they are far more useful for their utility, suction.
Mad Bomber is not bad for experienced players. Don't expect your gameplay to be more fluent because of it. In a party, you will rarely reach your damage potential due to the fact that our damaging bombs tend to impede players gameplay in some form or fashion. Soloing you will probably notice you lived longer in your 3 or 4* armor. If you tend to get hit alot, or you haven't properly learned enemy patterns and spawn points then Mad Bomber is not for you. Get comfortable with bombing first. Grab the Volcanic set and then save up for the Mad Bomber. It will save you a lot trouble in the long run.
Has anyone seriously tried using the Chaos set as a bombing armor set? I think its main purpose would be with a Brandish line sword or an Alchemer line gun.
There's nothing special to try about it. It's just Mad Bomber except your sidearms are stronger as well.
Has anyone considered updating the Bombing Guide to account for the Chaos changes and the addition of the Black Kat Cowl?
In particular, it's worth giving a shout out to the BKC and Mercurial Demo Suit combo. With this setup your bombs will only need CTR Med UVs to hit Max Damage, Max CTR, and MSI Med. The shadow defense only adds to the set's appeal.
I know the BKC is a limited item, but in the long run, whether you buy or roll your VH UV's on bombs, it'll probably be cheaper to invest in the Cowl.
I'm trying to replicate the awesome-streak I had the other day using salt bombs, with little success. It appears the magic sauce behind the bombs are a lot of luck. It's still pretty neato against Thwackers, and looking at your videos we're not using it very differently against them. I may be a tad more aggressive about getting the core blast up in their faces. Overall though, you're killing them about as fast as I am, so it must be a matter of perspective. What I have been trying to replicate instead is that one time I ran up to a mortafire and comboed him to death before has could as much as blink. I've managed to do this maybe two or three times, and the rest of the times I kinda just chase them around the map for about half a minute. I've had a bit of luck planting the bomb in front of them, then stepping back a bit diagonally. This'll lead to the mortafire running backwards onto somewhere on the ring and getting one shard in his back. Hardly consistent, and it's impossible to follow it up with comboing.
One thing about your C42 video. When you were fighting the turrets inside the nooks at the first arena-like place, you were placing the bomb outside of their range, letting only the shards do the damage on them. You can place the bomb closer to them just fine and nearly double your damage output to them. It occasionally leads to disappearing shards, but it went pretty smooth for me.
The bomb tends to work best when the shock hits. Using a salt bomb is kind of like using a regular six-sided dice. The problem is that DBB and DR are six-sided dice with five eyes on half of their faces and six on the other half, so it's not really worth it.
I trained a bit on using DR against Thwackers and you were right; they go down rather quickly when herded properly.