Appologies for the amazing play on words there :P
Anyway, SRS business.
The charge times are far too long for the bombs, The main use of the RSS was to supply quick and fast damage. These new bombs do not cover these two bases. They are slow and low damage. I can understand the concept that they get hit by the central blast then the outside blast. but the chances of that occuring are very low, due to knockback by team mates, or enemies moving. if the time between other blasts were quicker, then maybe it would be better.
On top of this, the new bombs are a little boring. in my oppinion, the bombs should be themed like the crystals they are based off of. So the red one should have fire, the yellow one should have stun, green = poison. ect, so on and so forth.
but yeah, they're underpowered and too slow as of the current time being.
Revision 1)
After leaving it a night to brew in my head and reading arguments from other players. I still feel that Pure shadow/Pure Normal are redundant. The Splinter bomb, i can understand because the RSS is still weaker than the Splinter bomb, with no guarentee of causing stun - of which if I wanted to do that, I would be using my haze bomb. The IBS I can see useful because it deals shock , and enemies if attacked well can be pushed inwards.
I've been unable to test how far the initial knockback affects enemies, but Ideally we want it to knock them just short of the outer ring when not affect. but the issue here is between the first and second blasts enemies will move. Now I can foresee two solutions for this; Either 1) Make the first blast lock the enemies in place briefly, like a brief application of stun until the second wave of bombs trigger, or reduce the timing between charge blasts, the latter will also help when enemies are being dealed knock-back from other weapons (The biggest issue I have when playing with parties who are not bomber aware).
Now I may get shot and burned for this, but meh, I am going to suggest a new mechanic. We have A Red, Green, Purple, And Yellow bomb. First, we need to create a blue bomb, this can either be done by changing one of the existing bombs and removing the status from it (I want to suggest the ISB - Perhaps replace the shock with stun)
The next step would be to add this mechanic. After the first explosion when the shards split, they are able to be magnetised/assymalated into newly placed crystals of different types. Why? This would the newly placed bomb change colour to a mix of the two that have been placed. Using the mineral guide for crafting stratum with a certain status as a template - these newly formed bombs will have status's akin to what we would get if these two minerals are the primary minerals in a gate.
This means that you could create fire by using the normal bomb in combination with the pierce bomb.
As a result of this, the bomb damage is slightly increased (Due to the extra effort in it), and given that status effect. To reduce confusion all damage emitted from this bomb would be pure normal.
Why would I suggest something as barbaric as this? Well, for one, we've already seen that this is how the crystals work (See the midget gremlins), secondly it would give reason to crafting ALL types of bombs. as well as this the new mechanic for these bombs makes it perfect for this.
For those who dont understand the concept still; have a 1000 hours in paint drawing of it, step by step n ****
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1048442/SCIENCE%20WITH%20CRYSTALS.png