Spiral Knights - Mad Bomber Science: Blast Bomb Family

Mad Bomber Science: Blast Bomb Family

11 replies [Last post]

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 14:32

Tzarl

I've noticed a lot of people here talked about the bombs, and their damage, but no one did any concrete data gathering to actually work out how these bombs work beyond their damage. What I've found is that, for any Mad Bomber, both the Irontech Destroyer and Big Angry Bomb are actually terrible damage bombs, given a Maxed out damage and CTR.

Loadout:

Mad Bomber Suit
Elite Boom Module
Nitronome, Itrontech Destroyer, Big Angry Bomb, Dark Briar Barrage
Other gear unrelated to bombs

Summary: CTR Max, Damage Max

Testing Grounds: Call of the Beast, Depth 24. Tested on Wolvers and Chromalisks

Background: I picked up the Mad Bomber set about a month ago, and have been playing an offensive bomber before that. What I am concerned about is how well I can kill things, any crowd-control being secondary or situationally necessary. These tests were focuses purely on how efficient they are at killing a target.

I looked for damage, charge time, fuse length, and blast radius (in tiles, where 1 is the full width of one tile) of these bombs, and recorded how many it took to kill a Wolver. I was then able to calculate a sustained DPS (damage per second given constant spam against a single target, limited by charge time), and a time-to-kill (starts from the moment you pick up the first bomb to the end of the last blast). All percentages are compared against Nitronome.

Nitronome: Damage: 301; Charge Time: 1.4 +/- .1; Fuse Length: 2.0 +/- .1; Blast Radius: 4; Bombs to Kill: 3; Sustained DPS: 215; Time-to-Kill: 6.2 s
Irontech Destroyer: Damage: 333 (11% more); Charge Time: 1.7 +/- .1 (21% longer); Fuse Length: 3.0 +/- .1 (50% longer); Blast Radius: 3; Bombs to Kill: 3; Sustained DPS: 196 (9% less); Time-to-Kill: 8.1 s (31% longer)
Big Angry Bomb: Damage: 365 (21% more); Charge Time: 2.0 +/- .1 (43% longer); Fuse Length: 3.0 +/- .1 (50% longer); Blast Radius: 3; Bombs to Kill: 3; Sustained DPS: 183 (15% less); Time-to-Kill: 9.0 s (45% longer)
Dark Briar Barrage: Damage: 366 (21% more); Charge Time: 1.4 +/- .1; Fuse Length: 2.0 +/- .1; Blast Radius: 4; Bombs to Kill: 3; Sustained DPS: 261 (21% more); Time-to-Kill: 6.2 s

Conclusion:

Even if one were to ignore the movement speed and blast radius decrease of the ID and BAB, both do not provide adequate bonuses to be useful by a maxed-damage bomber. Even in the event that one is unable to bring in a specialized bomb such as the DBB, it is still better to bring in a Nitronome due to its faster charge speed and fuse speed. I can think of no instance, given my loadout above, where either the ID or the BAB would be preferable to the Nitronome.

What about people that don't have the damage bonuses?

Admittedly, I did no testing with less of a damage bonus (or charge time, for that matter). However, these bombs serve little purpose but to do damage, so I decided it would be a reasonable assumption that the primary users of this bomb could max out their damage.

Why didn't you compare it against (other commonly used bomb)

Comparing raw numbers against another bomb is nearly impossible due to the bombs' differences. I chose the Nitronome and DBB to compare these two because they all have the same function: One-time explosion with no extra effects.

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 19:11

Doctorspacebar

SUNSHAAAAAAAAARDS

Maybe it's the crowd control. Once the Devs get smart and fix Stun, it'll be nice to have on the bombs.

I'd like to see how Skolver zombies will react to accidentally walking into a BAB now.

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 19:34

Tsubasa-No-Me

Well... Yes.

The nitor seems to be all about damage, and the input you gave is neat... It shows that the ITD and BAB need a damage boost. Because I'm almost certain that the BAB is SUPPOSED to be the hard hitter here. And the ITD in the middle.

Though the ITD's wonderfulness, is the timing. Yeah, it's not Pure offence, but it's survival.

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 20:23

Tzarl

The bombs aren't very distinct.

Tsubasa: not sure what you mean by survival. Nitro seems to have just as much knockback as the other two, coupled with the shorter fuse and charge time, seems to be the best choice for "survival" in terms of spamming to knock things away.

Now, if they *were* to put Stun on one of these bombs, I think that would help greatly. The problem is that right now, ITD and BAB are too similar, and I think adding Stun to ITD and boosting up BAB's damage would really help distinguish the three. Then you'd have the large-area spammy bomb, the debilitating knocker, and the small area heavy-hitter. I could actually conceivably find a use for all three then.

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 20:56

Capt-Chopper

Ima stun you!

It really depends if you are in a situation where you can constantly be dropping Nitronomes all the time at full speed. What I like about BAB now is that it can knock stuff clear across the map from me and seems more reliable when interrupting enemy's attacks. I think of BAB as a "charge once, take cover and do massive damage" bomb.

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 15:49

Tsubasa-No-Me

Nitro seems to have just as much knockback as the other two

Errr, No. ITB has more then the Nitro, and the BAB has around the strength of a Suda smash for Knockback.

Also, the BAB does NOT do Massive damage... 60 more damage? That's another Drop in the bucket.

And have you even seen the Test BAB and ITD that you can get off the AH? They have the same range as a Nitro. <.<

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 16:10

Obsidious

Strategic placement

I like to agree with Capt-Chopper: the other bombs help to edge more towards those catagories of 1-2 use with a very strong blast. Sometimes you just don't have the opportunity for a stream of charges, and you want to make the MOST out of a simple bomb blast; and the ITD and BAB are certainly getting to that point.

Though I do agree that BAB and ITD need something more to displace them better amongst the family. Having given this more thought, and considering that ITD's only strength over BAB is the charge time (Which is really minimal and very hard to notice. Also, walk speed for both seems to the same), then I think that ITD should have a a decrease in fuse length and walk speed decrease. These two would make the ITD feel a bit more nimble and lighter compared to BAB but with enough tweaking, still heavy enough to be differed from NItro.

On a side note, one of the nice things about the Irontech series is that it's 4* bomb also have the same Radius as nitro, which can more player friendly.

Lastly, though, I also do agree that BAB could use some increase in the dmg department, as well as perhaps the stun, so as to put it more on the heavier end of the blast-bomb family line.

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 16:50

Capt-Chopper

Ima stun you!

@Tsubasa-No-Me

60 more damage is a lot when you consider a bomb should be hitting 3-9 targets at once, on single targets I would probably use a shard bomb or Nitro. But I do see where you are coming from, I feel BaB's knockback is safer for me as I know nothing will be within striking distance of me after the blast, unlike Nitro and tier3 mechaknights. Though I would gladly take more damage of course, but I think Nitro should keep higher Damage output over constant use while BAB has Alpha strike advantage and knockback.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:55

Tsubasa-No-Me

Uuuh

If it was supposed to be a hit and run weapons, the Walk speed would be INCREASED... Run in, BAM... or if it was a SUDDENLYBOOM weapon, the Chargetime would be Uber fast. But it's not.

So then, Lets say (Because their Radius is the same) that they are each hitting 4 monsters per bomb....

You can get about 3 Nitro's off for every two BAB's (My math might be a bit wrong... have been up for 22 hours... @-@) And that's not counting the fusetime.

Nitro: 301*4*3 = 3612 Damage dealt.
BAB: 365*4*2 = 2920 Damage dealt.

Note, When Using the BAB, you cannot:
Dodge well
Finish charging your bomb if there are fast foes
Hit another group of monsters (Due to the wonderful Knockback)
Survive well (You need only slow, derpy monsters to survive...)
Get monsters to stay in the Radius of the 2nd bomb (If you are dodging, which you SHOULD be doing, if you want to place another bomb anytime soon... Super slow fusetime.)

Sooo, errr, Derp? I wish it was a Striker bomb; with MSI, Slow charge time, Huge radius, Huge Knockback, and hug-er (then now) Damage.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 10:09

The-Ark

Actually, the Nitros range is still about half a block larger than the ITD and BABs.

Unless I'm completely blind.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 14:55

#10

Obsidious

@Gingermace

When dealing with the original ITD and BAB, yes, but when working with the test variants provided via the AH, which includes the 4* Irontech, you'll notice they've increased the bombs to match that of Nitro's.

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 16:26

#11

Blakknite

My 2 cents....

In my opinion, they should remake the whole blast line. If nitro is going to be the fast spammable bomb then it needs to have the smallest radius, fastest walk and charge times and be the weakest of the 3. ITD should have a larger radius than nitro a longer fuse, slower walk and charge times and do moderate damage. BAB should be the nuke. Biggest radius, longest fuse, slowest walk, and be the most damaging. Or something to that effect, I dont know. At least this way each bomb has its strengths and weaknesses.

Putting status effects on blast bombs would make haze bombs useless. Otherwise make the BAB into the 5* version of the firecrack, Nitro the coldsnap, and add a new bomb for the static flash. Blast bombs should deal nothing but raw damage. If you do feel the need to make a status effecting blast bomb go the sealed sword route and make it blast random statuses. Again speculation here. Each weapon class should do what they do the best. If one bomb in that class is less used fine so long as its within its class.

Bombers dont have a single target dps bomb. The RSS did this by accident. I go the RSS shotgun/claymore route for when there are little enemies. Its pretty useless as a large area bomb. no ones gonna jump in a room full of enemies and start clearing it with just an RSS. Its get in close and get out tactics would get you killed in a room where you are surrounded by enemies. The blast bomb are far more effective here. It should stay the way it is. Just nerf it a bit if you must. Introduce the cluster bomb as a new line. That would be a specialty line with its own unique uses and benefits, just saying. Every weapon should have its own unique benefits and styles of play. Adds variety to the game.

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Mad Bomber Science: Blast Bomb Family