So what are the pros and cons of the bomb?

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Darkshaodw's picture
Darkshaodw

Everyone is expressing their outrage over the new bombs(its not hard to tell). But the bombs do have an upside. And a downside.

Pros: You can get lots of damage when you lure monsters toward you because the damage radius is a bit larger( or not)?

Cons: Slow to use, especially in lockdown.

So what do you think? What are your likes and dislikes?

President-Trump
pros: good looking, vase

pros: good looking, vase indeed, allows you to create alympic rings with 5 bombers
cons: totally dead in LD, stun bug kills team, tool for undead is now pure piercing, nothing to quickly break ores, nothing to snipe puppies and hit switches.

Softhead's picture
Softhead
I liek the change,

But I'll advise, this will go to rage city in a few moments...

Pros: Easier to get used to, good for crowds.

Cons: Lower Dmg.

Stingz's picture
Stingz
Needs work

Haven't used my new Sun Shards enough to notice much pros but

Pros:
-Enemies no longer dodge shards
-DPS elemental/shadow bomb (Crystal/Dark Matter line)
-ISB is no longer horrible PvE, kills slimes

Cons:
-Long shard fuse
-Small shard radius
-Hard to hit, at all, with shards
(-Sun Shards glow like a Nitro blast)

Hmmnm's picture
Hmmnm
Pros: Good artwork. Cons: I

Pros: Good artwork.
Cons: I have no idea what it is good for.
Low damage and unfriendly knockback, especially when in a party. Slow shard explosion.
Outclassed by DBB and Nitro.

Nurdell's picture
Nurdell
I'd put the "monsters don't

I'd put the "monsters don't dodge shards" in cons because I relied on that to beat devilite levels. Also, no longer one- or two-shot grievers.
Pros: More variety, new attack patterns.
/e is crying

Zeddy's picture
Zeddy
I've only tested 4* ISB in

I've only tested 4* ISB in the field but:

Pros:
-Man this thing LOOKS cool!
-It's honestly fun
-With for example ISB you can get max damage + CTR + Medium MSI against slimes using the Mercurial Demo Suit and CTR trinkets. How cool is that? It's pretty cool.
-The damage is okay maybe?
-The shock makes ISB very very useful.
-By introducing pure damage bombs, bombing may become more popular in the long run.
-ISB can kill mini-jellies, unlike DR.

Cons:
-Like all shadow bombs, it's useless against gremlins.
-It's probably junk against fiends too? I have yet to test.
-Stun bomb when stun is still bugged.
-Disappearing shards when close to walls
-Disappearing shards when close to people in Lockdown. So we have a weapon whose weakness is being close to people. That's nice.
-My favourite weapon was removed to give us this.
-Your teammates will not be able to see anything, or so my teammates claimed.
-The previous Radiant Sun Shards was used to kill undead and constructs. Because it's pure piercing now peoples UVs are wasted. I had low vs slime myself
-The fuse time is a bit slow or a bit fast. I can't really tell. If it was faster it'd seem more immediately effective, if it was slower we could create a minefield of several shard bombs out at once and that'd be totally cool-looking.
-That whole UV ticket thing was just embarrassing.
-Having three identical bombs for all three damage bombs makes the game kinda bland-ish. Nobody asked for a piercing sealed sword. Having six identical bombs just kind of feels like a waste. It's too late to change now but we really only needed a shadow and elemental variety.

Nordlead's picture
Nordlead
Obviously, most people will

Obviously, most people will say that SSS/RSS sucks compares to the old RSS, but then say that they are using it on undead. Due to the damage change that makes perfect sense that it sucks for undead. Reality is that they should have had some kind of system to choose between pierce or elemental for those that had the RSS.

I bought a Cyrstal Bomb with intention of making it elemental so I would have my set of piercing (DBB), shadow (Dark Retribution) and elemental (Deadly Crystal Bomb).

Having played with the mechanics, the piercing shard bombs don't hold a candle to the DBB for wolvers or gremlins because the DBB knocks them down allowing you to pin them in place. So, I'll probably never get the piercing version of the bomb. For shadow, I don't think it does enough damage to outdo the dark retribution, but if you didn't buy the DLC then it would make a good alternative.

Since there are no other DPS elemental bombs, it really comes down to Deadly Crystal Bomb vs Nitronome when making a comparison of fighting undead/constructs.

To use the bomb properly, the initial blast should be hitting a group of monsters and pushing them into the secondary charges. This works really well on groups of zombies.

Pros:
* Looks cool
* Fun mechanic
* Does good damage if both initial and secondary charge hit
* Good Charge time

Cons:
* the timing between primary and secondary explosion is long enough that any fast moving monster won't be hit by the second explosion.
* Feels like it should also do a status
* small overall blast area. For comparison, Nitronome has a MUCH bigger blast area and does similar damage + knockback.
* shards dissapear if they hit walls to hard. Sometimes they are slightly moved, other times they dissapear.

Overall Verdit:
So far I like the bomb, but I think it needs a small (say 15-20%) boots in damage and the secondary explosions should go off faster so they hit faster monsters.

Stingz's picture
Stingz
!?

They could probably make the RSS line split elemental/piercing again, making it more versatile.
Remove the stun also, it isn't helping anyone.
I'm certain that people didn't get the RSS to kill Wolvers.

ISB line stays shadow, was horrible before for Slimes

Juances's picture
Juances

Think of the old Peacemaker. Split damage wasnt exactly popular.
RSS did work for some reason, but I dotn think this thing will too.

Canine-Vladmir's picture
Canine-Vladmir
it looks...

it looks like the knight is holding a potato with butter coming out of it :) YUM!

Zeddy's picture
Zeddy
I return

I've tested the RSS now. I tested it in FSC and then in a devilite town level.

On three occasions I asked my teammate to let me solo a Trojan so I could test out this fiend-buster versus a fiend. The result?

Radiant Suicide Shards are worse than useless. I contribute more to my team by doing absolutely nothing than using this bomb. I tried it first in Charred Court, the lower left room where you have to kill the Trojan to proceed. The surrounding slags were knocked about erratically, the Trojan's mere presence made the shards disappear altogether and the stun bug sure that I could never be safe. If I'd used a Nitronome the slags would be off my back and the Trojan would be easily herded back and forth. If I'd used DBB I would at least be able to gauge the slag's movement. If I'd used Dark Retribution I would probably have cleared the room faster! After getting similar results a couple of Trojans later I spent the rest of the run hitting more slags with more damage using the initial blast of Shivermist.

When used in a team, my teammates frequently complained about lag, unpredictable enemies and visual obfuscation. General consensus was "Oh Jesus Christ on a pogo stick please stop".

-I know that your one programmer is super-busy and is unable to fix the stun bug, but could you at least just remove it from Sun Shards?
-Fix disappearing shards. Worrying about our projectiles being blocked by shields and blocks is not very bomb-like, Nick.

To be fair, I also tested them in a Devilite level in a mission. They performed satisfactory. With the Very High damage bonus against fiends it did almost equivalent damage to Dark Briar Barrage but over a smaller area and I guess maybe slightly more often? A Very High vs Fiends DBB would outperform it in a heartbeat. Upgrading it to 5* is bound to make a difference here but that'll be after my Irontech Bomb, Deadly Crystal Bomb and probably even Bombtastic Demo suit. I haven't used it against greavers yet; not holding my breath for it to be good.

Tersakaff's picture
Tersakaff

Cons:
Bird crap
Poor damage
Poor in LD
Poor in PVE

Pros:
It's... pretty?

Dark-Flare's picture
Dark-Flare
Pros: -Looks kewl -Good for

Pros:
-Looks kewl
-Good for crowd damage, as you can hit n' run, and expect decent results
-Much more bombing options

Cons:
-Poor damage
-2nd fuse is too long
-As mentioned, the disappearing shards issue (when against a large wall, or certain monsters, such as trojans. People too...?)
-Big one i've noticed: It is awful on trojans. The 1st explosion is fine, but the trojan "absorbs" the shard that flies out, so that it doesn't exist, and as a result, everything else blows up, but only the initial explosion did anything.

Metagenic's picture
Metagenic

Pros: aesthetics

Cons: function

Skold-The-Drac's picture
Skold-The-Drac
/laughs

I kind of abused the shard timer on the trojan in charred court zombie room. Killed it in 4 charges, slags didn't give me issues cause a I kited a barrier out with the shards.
The shard timer is where you can lead the trojan's back to the shards that do manage to spawn. But I also like playing tag with trojans... they're always charging at me to not be it. Should be noted that I abused the cluster shard issue where if you put the shardbomb just far enough from the barriers, it makes a cluster of the shards. Put trojan's back to 3 of em and they go quick. But remember that was also with a 4* bomb, not the 5*.

The stun status just made it a crowd control bomb, when said crowd didn't stagger their charging attacks. I basically move an extra square or two bigger in a daisy chain formation as if I had an EV and wanted to spam. Got complemented on my bird-crap designs being burned into my party's retinas. The flash is a pain... but alas, nothing I'm incapable of getting over.

I almost don't want to craft the pure damage versions out of fear that I'll just become a pure shardbomber flashing up your screen in pretty colors. Almost :P.

Granted, damage can use a boost... but I can use this thing pretty well.

Zeddy's picture
Zeddy
@Skold-The-Drac

That's interesting. I'll give my Trojan battles another go using your charge-baiting tactic.

Paweu's picture
Paweu
Pros: - it's a bomb Cons: -

Pros:
- it's a bomb
Cons:
- it's not a sword
- it's not a gun

Infidelslayer's picture
Infidelslayer
....

Pro:
-Skolver strikers can now dominate bombers.

Con:
-LD is now a la-la land for toothpick wolver strikers.

Liu-Kon's picture
Liu-Kon
XD

@ infidelslayer: lol soo true...it wouldnt be any fun if u keep pwning the bombers anymore...bombers r just another way to get pwned in LD...even tho i kinda suck :L...but now tht bombers r crazy power reduced...LD is more a gunner/sword pvp battle now...

Liu-Kon's picture
Liu-Kon
oh and another thing

i went to the HOH and i looked at the 2* blast bomb...the 4* doesnt even match up to it...come on OOO...this like a major con...SUPER WEAK POWER!!

Dmatter's picture
Dmatter
i am just gonna add this

i am just gonna add this because i noticed it in the training hall. it can occasionally go through mist gates (the shards). that is all.

Lazar-Doge
pros n cons

pros
........
make u look like a hipster
cons
its sucks and made me quit spiral knights

Wodanct's picture
Wodanct
Pros: Looks cool? Cons: It

Pros: Looks cool?

Cons: It sucks
It sucks
It REALLY sucks

... Did I mention it sucks.

I suggest not making any of these shard bombs, their damage output is worse than even the haze type bombs and are not even remotely helpful.

Geosmin's picture
Geosmin
...

Pros:
* would be fun to use if it weren't so dangerous (easily fixed by removing knock from secondary explosions?)
* promises to be very useful if that huge kink gets ironed out
* inspires hilarious drama on the forums

Cons:
* worse than Nitronome; now a threat to the user instead of just party mates
* solution too clever by half; "problem" only asked for an AoE, which could be simply added and given most of the weapon's damage while leaving the beloved projectiles with miniscule damage but still useful
* so dramatically hated that when it gets the balance buffing it probably needs, people will still have bad feelings for it

Roarr's picture
Roarr
in LD

pros: status, ie: stun and shock were added

cons: small blast radius, long fuse time for the 2nd blast. too much gap in between, this is the easiest bomb to dodge.