Let's talk about Tactical Weapons. Basically, tactical weapons are weapons that aren't bombs that every Demo should have for certain situations. It never hurts to have a sword or gun with you.
I currently have these four weapons in my loadout: Faust, Shivermist Buster, Master Blast Bomb, Virulent Catalyzer.
Not everyone is gonna have 4 weapon slots and 2 tactical weapons. I just wanna know what you guys use, and what you would recommend.
My non-bomb weapon of choice is my Leviathan. It combos well with Shivermist and only takes up one weapon slot, leaving the other three to my precious bombs. If I'm venturing into a Slime strata then I'll bring an Acheron instead, it has a High Slime UV, so it makes really quick work of them. For Fiend or Beast I usually bring my Final Flourish. Otherwise though, it is Levi all the way.
I never carry a gun unless I'm going into FSC, in which case my AP takes up slot 4.
non-bomb eh? I carry a silent nightblade (don't need to upgrade, its already good enough) and..... well you.... The still explosive cataliyser and pulsar.
I also own a Grand Flourish (accidentally bound) and a Argent.... which has been replace by radiant sun shards =S
as for piercing.... I find dark briar and Radiant Sunshard very useful... in fact i carry them on every vanna run =p Sun shards rids Turrets in a few hits (placed correctly) and Briar just destroys groups of devilites. Choosing one over the other, i think radiant is the best as it can kill everything easily apart from jellies whereas Briars limited to a few mobs, but absolutely pwns the ones it can hit.
finally at cylliene, the main bombs people go for are nitro, ash and shiver; just because they are the most useful in team play and don't require to much patience and effort. However it is hard to say what bombs you'll settle for, some people love things that noone else uses, but use them effectively when they do.
I mostly work with two weapon slots since I haven't been having time to play but I went ahead and bought a third one today again. I generally run:
1) Leviathan
2) Shivermist Buster (I don't have AoA or VT, I do have their 4 star versions though).
3) Nitronome.
If I have two slots then its usually shivermist because I like freeze + charge attack levi. If I have 3 then I usually place the nitronome before shivermist. I don't have a particular reason for that order, but it seems to work fine.
In IMF though I'd kind of just forget about my bomb and use my silversix (now AP). I don't usually use guns but its helpful there for speed purposes.
re: tactical weapons, I made myself a Brandish with Very High damage to construct, because I am sick and tired of getting murdered by turrets (especially rocket turrets) in arenas and not being able to do *anything* to stop them. I went down the fiery path, but freeze could be aright too. It's also good for busting out of a horde when surronded: before I wasted a vial slot on Sleep vials, just so I'd have some way of breaking free when my shield bash was used/
To my mind it's the best construct-killing sword there is, because it's the ONLY elemental sword that can be farmed for UV's. Although if you luck out with a Sealed Sword and manage to turn it into a DA with a UV versus constructs, you have my envy. The attack pattern is not to my liking, but it'll carry you out of trouble, and it chops up turrets nice and quick. My guildies swear by the Leviathan's charge attack, but my thinking is that bane damage is king, and that you can't always rely on charge attacks in a pinch.
I also use the brandish against large lichen colonies, and it does the job well enough there, but I'd really like the shadow damage variant. I'm not sure I hate lichens enough to carry a second sword, or give up the brandish, though.
So I very very new bomber. I was making some haze bombs, one to eventually get to Ash of Agni and one for Shivermist, and I managed to get a Very High vs Construct on my first one :) I was thinking of selling it because I it could make a profit and then I could in turn actually afford to start the upgrades toward Ash of Agni and Shivermist, but I am having a lot of trouble selling it. If I continue to try to sell it, what would be a good price? If you think I should not sell it and instead use it, which should I upgrade it into?
Bleh I'll add this reason to the wiki later.... so many people asking.
Question: I'm trying to sell a very high damage UV haze bomb. Why does no-one want it?
Answer: To put it simply; Haze bomb damage bonuses only apply to the initial explosion of the bomb, which is actually quite small (less than half of the radius). So as most Vaporiser users buy the bombs for the status effects, the buyers are more likely to seek UVs increasing Charge Time Reduction rather than damage (unless of course the buyer is going for a Mad Bomber set, but those players would only need a damage+ med UV). In the end, a player lucky enough to receive a very high damage UV through crafting, is better off keeping the UV to their own (slight) advantage.
@Sarmondia, if you still want to sell it, I recently bought a high slime damage UV at AH for 8k if that provides any guidance. Perhaps post in the bazaar sub forums, or ask around. I'd probably keep a UV like that though, as there is never a reason to lose extra damage to constructs which bombers have trouble fighting (Gunpuppies xD)
on another note, I'm out for a short while so the wiki guide will probably cease work unless someone wants to work on it.
To expand on the damage bonuses for haze bombs, one of the problems is that CTR benefits every non-bomber. All of the haze bombs are status bombs, meaning, they are used to inflict status passively to enemies. The mist stays around for a while after you place the bomb down which means that you really don't have to actively keep placing the same status field down over and over. For a non-bomber, this is a good compliment to their arsenal but they don't get the bonuses from armor that bombers do so they look for CTR UVs to compensate. Keep in mind that haze bombs are a 10CE to craft item so you can make 10 of them off one full mist tank leading to over saturation of the market as people craft them looking specifically for one UV.
Regarding damage: the haze bomb has a small blast radius which deals elemental damage but the mist itself doesn't cause any damage on explosion. This limits useful damage UVs to construct, undead, slimes, and fiend. Of those four enemies, construct, undead and slimes are probably the easiest to hit with the elemental explosion of a haze bomb. The change to slimes means that you probably never want to get too close to them so it really narrows down to undead or construct. Of the two, I think construct is the better since most construct enemies are very immobile or predictable which means they're extremely to hit with the elemental blast (which does a ton of damage btw!).
As for the price of the bomb, I would say somewhere in the 200-600CE range is reasonable. It all depends on the buyer but if you're serious about bombing I would just keep it to make into an Ash of Agni.
I don't know if any of you have tried this yet but when I was doing a Jelly Run I brought my Static Capacitor and another player had their Graviton Bomb. At one point we used them both and I saw the numbers flying all over the place. I don't know if this is a viable combination or not especially if running solo. Maybe some of you more experienced bombers want to try it out if you haven't already and see if its of any worth.
its fun especially in fsc, but gravi always has the issue of ur party smacking the mobs far away from it, lol.
in solo it isnt tat good either, id prefer ash and shock combo or w.e else is appropriate, since the mobs die so quick anyway
I tried it solo and it is usable but I think the set-up time and upkeep required isn't worth the payout. You can see some of the videos of VT/Gravi combo here.
as of right now I have both shivermist and ash of agni .. is there any point of going for a shock bomb too? I really don't know if it would be worht it for me as it took me long enough to get both of these...
The Voltaic Tempest is a decent bomb. It has some uses such as slowing down kat ghosts and zombies. The bomb is probably a couple small tweaks away from being good but right now it is sort of limited in my opinion. Whether or not you'll find it useful is realy up to you but I think AoA and Shivermist cover a lot of the bases that the VT is only decent at.
The good news is the patch made 3* and 4* bombs quite usable so you could just make a 3 or 4* shock bomb if you really wanted and just use that and you'd probably be just fine. The nature of the shock bomb makes it only shine when enemies are clustered tightly (a formation not found a lot naturally) so having a smaller radius isn't a huge deal breaker. I'd wager to say you could pull off the stuff in the kat video above with a 3 or 4* bomb no problem.
If AoA and Shiv are your only two bombs I'd recommend trying the shock bomb to see if you like it but there are better bombs out there that you could be spending your CE on IMO.
can someone tell, what charge time will i have with Mad Bomber set + Nitronome (or Ash of Agni) bomb with UV Charge Time Reduction Very High with complete 10 heat lvl?
UV Very High (or High) + Complete Medium = already "Maximum!" or I'm wrong?
Is there some reason for mad bomber set or UV Very High?
Once you hit MAX, you hit MAX. You can't charge faster than that so if you run Mad Bomber Set w/ Heat Level 10 weapons, CTR UVs are not helpful.
If you have a shivermist buster(or lower) and somebody has a ash of agni(or lower) what's the proper protocol?
Ash of agni is more party "friendly" since players can keep playing like they normally do without any adjustments and the fire ticks will just soften up the enemies in the room. If you want, you can also combo the two weapons. Basically you put your ash and shiv down in the same spot and enemies inside the rings will freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw taking fire ticks at an accelerated rate. This is pretty fun but not an entirely useful strategy since it seems to only speed up fire ticks by roughly 150%.
I think the combo strategy falls apart though. If you get offset (which will happen) some enemies will be frozen and some will be taking normal fire damage and it'll be staggered all over the place making team adjustment more difficult.
In my parties, I usually just yield and let the other person spam status. I don't find spamming fire/ice/poison/shock particularly fun anyway and rather be doing other stuff.
so if i have bomb with UV very high + 10lvl - I don't need any bomber set?
Correct. You will max out your CTR on that bomb without any bomb-specific armor.
If you had to choose UVs for a mad bomber suit, what would you choose between shock and freeze resist, or is there another UV you would choose over them?
Shock annoys the heck out of me as a T2 bomber while I just shield until freeze breaks, but I can see why freeze could be more deadly in T3.
Shadow increase is quite helpful, especially with fiends being a nuisance to a lot of bombers. but shock is nice to not have to deal with... as it really sucks not being able to charge..... Freeze isn't really needed if you can spam nitros (assuming the mobs aren't ranged). I myself would go with shadow if possible.
> can someone tell, what charge time will i have with Mad Bomber set + Nitronome (or Ash of Agni) bomb with UV Charge Time
> Reduction Very High with complete 10 heat lvl?
Bombs max out their charge time with 6 increments of CTR. The bomb itself provides 2 of those increments when it gets to level 10.
With V.High (4 increments), and the bomb itself, you have all 6, and no other equipment will improve charge time.
Charge time on the Nitronome (assuming it's the same as Master Blast), with maxxed out charge time (by whatever means) will be 1.4 seconds.
Haze Bombs with max CTR will be 2.2 seconds.
So the bombing guides coming along nicely, and i can see the end in sight. most of the necessary content is there, perhaps theres a bit of work needed in tactics (maybe) and the videos/diagrams.
But one thing i noticed while scrolling down the page... it feels like its just text. anyone agree? Does it need pictures relating to certain paragraphs? i.e. a picture of a Nitronome in the Nitronome paragraph?
Eeks just added a part to the guide which is awesome (the hazards section on each bomb), and as spiralmike discussed in another thread, the page could add a bit of formality. Im thinking along the lines of
~DPS (probably take forever, and depths can be an issue)
~Style (DPS, Situational, Support, null)
~Beneficial points (probably not needed if its in the discussion section)
~hazards (eeks is so awesome and has already done them)
at the end of each bomb....
thanks for all those who have helped so far, and your incoming ideas ;)
The block of text... terrifying to any content creator. We can take a cue from best practices from writing for the web:
I think for DPS we can just pick a depth and do the calculation there. For 4/5* bombs I would recommend Depth 24. That is the last depth where damage increases scale linearly with enemy defense.
Shout out to my master bomber Eeks. OOO should present you an award bud. :) You've helped a lot of bombers! :)
ok we got videos =p.
now we just need some related pictures (overkiting, kockback distance of bombs, tactics?, etc) ~so bombers, collect heaps of screen caps on your journeys =p ~ some DPS data for each bomb (oh god) and then someone to painstakingly fix grammar, make things bold and structure sections.
Once it's done I'll post a section in general discussion to make forums goers aware =p.
*note to self* fix Irontech destroyer info - some BAB; very close fuse time to BAB, less knockback than BAB, less damage than BAB, same walking speed when charging and BAB uses haze CT and Irontech uses blasts CT.
Okay, bombers, I've got a bunch of bombs kicking around and I'd love some thoughts on what to do with them.
My current two main options are: a Fiery Atomizer with a low damage bonus to Slime, and a Freezing Atomizer with a low damage bonus to Gremlins (I believe).
I've got a Fiery Vaporizer mk 1 with a VH damage bonus to Undead.
And last night I crafted a Haze Bomb with CTR Med.
(Also have a Sun Shards and a Graviton Bomb that I rarely use, and a Blast Bomb I built for the heck of it, plus the various bonus package bombs.)
My question: which ones should I develop? I've got all the time and energy into the Atomizers already - would it be worth unbinding and selling them for a small profit, then building out the other two? Or am I better off trying to sell the two with the better UVs that are not bound?
Unfortunately the damage bonus UVs on the haze bomb line are not terribly useful. The bonus only applies to the small elemental blast when the bomb detonates. The more useful UV for haze bombs is simply CTR Medium+. With that UV you can reach CTR Max just by wearing Mad Bomber Mask, Mad Bomber Suit or the Volcanic Demo Helm.
Since the damage type of the blast is pure elemental only UV Damage Undead/Construct would really be desired. If you wear full Mad Bomber then you can have CTR Max and Damage Max to that monster type with just a UV Damage Medium vs type.
Since you have experience already with the fire/freeze lines, consider which you find most useful and build your CTR Medium up to 5*. Have to take into account your bomber gear though.
Hello, I'm not a Bomber, I use an Ash Tail set, an Ascended Calibur and an Avenger, and I wanna put a Shivermist Buster on the 3rd slot.
My question is: making a 5* bomb without any CTR UV is good? Or making a Shivermist Buster without any CTR UV is a bad choice?
I believe there was some mention of UVs on Haze bombs dropping their radius. I believe that this was refuted as a SK Urban Legend. I would suggest, for you - since you don't have anything to speed up its charge, to look at a CTR. BUT, depending on how you intend to use it, it may not be necessary. What I mean by this is, if you are planning on using it as a lead in attack (to freeze your opponent initially) so you can take them out with you other weapons, it could be viable IMHO. Freeze, Attack, Kite, Freeze, Attack, etc.
Hope my rookie advice helps and is the type of answer you are looking for,
Baines
Uvs don't drop the radius. It was only so in beta, and with the blast bomb line.
URIKz, CTR bonuses are always optimal. A haze bomb without a UV CTR will be 2700ms at level 10, and in dire situations that's a large space of time in which monsters can hit you. Seeing as you're a swashbuckler, if it's only for getting out of problems, a medium UV CTR bonus should suffice (supplying a Vhigh CTR bonus overall) but low bonuses are still effective. Haze bombs with med-low CTR's are relatively cheap these days, and you should'nt have a problem obtaining one.
I have bought one for 300 CE :D
Medium CTR!
Ty people.
What would be a commendable shield for a bomber? I currently have a Heavy Plate Shield with UV Shadow Medium. I have the Ironmight Plate Shield recipe (not learned yet). Should I go ahead and follow that path? I chose that mainly for the big Normal and decent Piercing defense. Would there be a better choice? I don't mind starting over with a new shield.
Shields were discussed on the previous page http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/4347?page=4#comment-84143 , but if you don't quit grasp what's being discussed: Shields relate minimally to bombers, as they are more of a situational thing, so it's always a good idea to have several shields to cover most defences. However for convinience, many players choose the Owlite line- as it provides good defense in the highly frequented areas (FSC). Piercing isn't really something to have defense against - I have a dragon scale shield and those monsters with pure pierce damage will still break the shield in a number of hits. Normal is also less used by mobs in t3, and although it might be perfect for t1 -early t2, endgame situations won't favor you for pure normal defense.
I'll add it to the FAQ on the bombing page - its been asked enough. also I was thinking of adding a bombing etiquette section - just because i've seen a couple of bombers recently who have made peoples lives a misery =p.
good work with adding pictures eeks xD. I've been attempting, but hitting f12 at the right time proves challenging and often I'll get hit by a mob in the process. Maybe Ill keybind scrnsht onto 'f' or something.
I Would Like to Thank personally everyone who have contributed for this great Thread!!!!! Congrats guys! cant wait for all this data ported on the wiki!
SECOND:
Im Very happy to be a Pure bomber,
With My V-Helm and MB-Suit i have a great CTR and, in my opinon that whats bombing is all about: Speed, Since the great issue here is our (Suposedlly) LOW DPS.
But now I have a GREAT DOUBT:
This are the bombs I Have:
Agni
Shiver
Veiler
Vortex
Nitro
What bomb should I add to my arsenal and what are the 4 bombs to be a great Pure-Bomber?
PS: I make FSC runs
Any other Thing you should know about my Character to answer mt questions??
Thanks alot!
@eek5
I'm wondering what armor you're using, I look at the videos and wonder if I should also be aiming for a mercurial helm. Could you tell me what's the current set of armor you're using?
Thanks again.
I usually wear Volcanic Demo helm w/ Mad Bomber suit or full Mad Bomber depending on the strata.
Ah gotcha, so the mercurial helm is just for armor costume, when I saw you play I thought: "damn this guy moves fast".
Yeah it is just a costume or equipped for heating. The movement speed increase from Mercurial appears to only be detectable over very long distances. CTR bonus is definitely much more useful than movement speed for bombers.
Thats right for a pure bomber Mad bomber Full or Volc/bomber head + Mad bomber suit is the way.
you can reach the MAX CTR with lvl 10 bombs and only worry about DMG UVs.
sry for my english
I want to see the difference between the Irontech Destroyer & Nitronome, please.
Also, I have a Bonus vs Construct: Very High on my Super Blast Bomb. Is this a good UV?
That's an awesome UV. aaaand by difference do you mean a video or radius pics + damage pictures?
I've been told Irontech is horrible, but I want to see the differences myself. I've already seen BAB & Nitro, but no Irontech.
-Shivermist
-Vortex
-Sun shard
is a good setup ?
So what's the strategy for taking down gremlin bombers? I just went on the third stage of a gremlin arena and ... well, maybe i shouldn't do that too often. But even if I'm trying to blast one away 1v1, it takes forever. My current strategy is to spam shivermist to try and trap them and then nitro away, but it took so long to get the bombers into my radius because of their erratic hopping.
Thoughts/strategies? I'm curious what's a good way to fight them en masse – like at the end of a gremlin arena – but also a good strategy to dispatch them in normal combat.
Ash is a good bomb to use against those bombers. Cover the field with fire, and they'll burn to their deaths. Just make sure you spread out the haze patches, instead of placing it in 1 corner, to cover more area.
I also carry a sword with me because I often run into a single enemy while kiting with bombs, and it's almost always a mender or bomber. Use a sword to slap them against a wall, and if you can, keep slashing until the enemy is dead, and then switch back to your bombs until you single out another one.
Ohai Rik! welcome to the thread.
Also @Souron i find that any of the spike shower series helps due to the knockdown it provides - and spamming it will get rid of them fairly easily. Kiting with Ash is also good as Riktasi said.
@IronSkullKid message me in game and I'll show you how terrible Irontech Des is ;)
So looking forward to people testing out the new bombs >.> I'm trying to work my way there but its just too much for one day. I got 36 over the last 2 hours or so. I'm trying to figure what the electron one is. Is that graviton + shock or something O.o? I just wanted to upgrade the stun bomb though
I'd like to inquire as to the range, dmg, effectiveness of the Spine Cone & Radiant Sun Shard line, for a comparison between them,
& if anyone should bother going for them after the main Nitro, Fire & Ice ?
Elemental Weakness are Undead & Constructs which are usually simple to bomb. Except for Puppy bitches. (Gun perhaps? :D)