Hey there! Styrka here again.
While I recieved a plethora of help in my first post requesting some basic answers, I am now more settled in the Cradle and am honing my skills as a mixed gunner and bomber.
Currently I am enjoying using the magnus and the electron charge (Noobish right? xP) with fused femo helm and suit respectively. Lastly I am running around with a swiftstrike buckler across my back, all of this adding up to what I think is a pretty decent set for where I am at in the game.
However, with 5 star looming on the horizon as I stockpile crowns for energy (Which has fallen drastically in price -- BOOYAH!) I have to ask myself if there is any other better verison of a bomb slinger (Or a Gomber? I sorta like the second one) that I might use instead.
So far I've found that the magnus picks up a good deal of monsters for nuetral damage and even can hold a lumber in place with stun while my electron charge takes its sweet time exploding, which is perhaps one of my biggest faults I am finding; Things that resist piercing and cannot get pulled into the electron bomb are the thorn in my side! Gun puppies and the jelly turrets are particular tormentors, as I have to run around them to place down four to five charges just to get one down while taking fire from goodness knows what else!
So, to put it briefly, are there any viable fixes to this without pulling the whole set apart?
The only answers I've come up with so far are;
A) Make an armor set that will give MAX time reduction on the bombs so I can stack them in a hurry (Maybe full mad even for the damage bonus)
B) Instead of getting the Callahan, I might favor the Iron Slug, as it hits everything equally
or C) Both.
Any thoughts?
Well, as a Gomber you have a few options for sets. From the sounds of it you currently don't have access to trinkets or weapon slots, but for these sets I will assume that you eventually will unlock them, as leaving them locked forever is both false economy and generally not a good idea as it restricts you from so many potential stats that it's just not worth it. The slots are relatively cheap and can be made cheaper by purchasing them with mist via your ragecrafting alt, if you have one.
So these sets may not be something you can get immediately, but they're potential targets for you to aim to.
A/ Mad Bomber with Swifty and Trueshot Mods
This gives you vh:max on your bombs and vh:hi:med on your guns. Solid stats, but absolutely falls to pieces defensively and requires you to be a dodging ninja. Vortexes aid this issue as they're generally a pretty safe bomb to use.
2/ Chaos with Swifty and [Bomb CTR]/[Gun Dmg]/[Bomb Dmg] Trinkies
A minimum of med:vh on both guns and bombs from the set, with hi asi from the shield. The trinkies can be cherry-picked depending on what you're more likely to use and how your build would work. This build does favour using bombs offensively, but with at least a vortex in the mix that works out nicely. Other dps bombs would be encouraged to max this off.
C/ Shadowsun with Swifty and Bomb Focus Mods
vh:hi:med on your guns and max CTR on your bombs. This set favours hazes and vortexes and lets the guns deal the damage, although does little for charge orientated guns such as Blitz. Alch switching, polaris, antiguas etc all benefit nicely from this.
Note that these are not all the bomber/gunner loadouts that can be mixed, and assume that you have zero UVs. UVs can change a lot in a loadout, but can also cost a hairy fortune and/or take a long time to find, so I'm just going with sets that can be built by anyone at any time. There are other sets and options you could mix in, such as Volcanic Demo or the ASI Gunner sets, but I'm just throwing out a few fun mixtures to play with.
Note also that although I've listed Swifty in each of these, it's only there for the gun and can easily be replaced if you're finding yourself worried about shielding/def. This is especially true if you happen to charge your guns a lot, as the ASI has limited effect on charges.
As for turrets; polaris is the turret silencer in the game. It's easy, fast, safe and requires little time and aim. Pepperbox can also clean the floor with them but requires a charge and some gun damage; polaris can be zero:zero and still destroy turrets albeit with a few more bullets.
Short of that, some alchemer charges can clear them pretty quickly and RSS des-oh wait....
Bombs can't deal with turrets at all anymore, thanks OOO, so you'll need to rely on your guns for that. I would not recommend Iron Slug for this task, as it won't kill them fast and will find restrictive use elsewhere. Polaris can still easily kill polyps even though it's neutral damage on them.
For a hybrid loadout, I'd suggest unlocking at least one weapon slot, especially if you're determined to keep Callahan in your loadout. Having a shadow weapon wouldn't hurt, or even just another gun or haze; you open a lot of options with that third slot. Fourth slot sees diminishing returns, however. Alchemers fit nicely into a vortex loadout, as the charge (or even just single shots) can easily take advantage of internal ricochets and are more likely to land external ricochets due to enemies being clumped together and spinning.
As for your bombs; VH CTR is not unusable. VH is only half a second longer than max and won't result in a massive difference in your gameplay, if you find a part, trinky or such that you'd rather place torwards a gun (such as Seerus) over just maxing your CTR. Max CTR, however, is very fast and safe to use, especially if you're constantly on the move and don't want to be vulnerable for any longer than need be, which would be a good attitude for bomb/gunners, especially if you use the first two options listed above that punish players for allowing themselves to...well, even just get sneezed on.