...Swords...you guys have more weapons to choose from than anybody, and have the largest playerbase in the game. Other playstyles need a little injection to breathe new life into them.

I do feel that bombers and gunners deserve attention before sworders. However, let's be clear about our facts: In the 5-star weapons, there are (by my count)

• 18 swords, which are variations on at most 8 core concepts,
• 17 guns, which are variations on 7 core concepts, and
• 18 bombs, which are variations on at least 6 core concepts.

So, depending on how you count, swords have either slightly more variety than guns and bombs, or no more variety. Really, I feel that bombers deserve attention before gunners, but I'll take any new content I can get.

I'd like to point out that there's a good chance that sword and bomb updates will be released sooner or later, and gunners are just getting their stuff first.

Arkate, I specifically addressed the issue of "variety among the weapons", by evaluating how many distinct "core concepts" there are in each weapon type. Please read before writing.

*нет

Swords (perhaps being the poster child of weapons in Spiral Knights) are the well balanced and most used weapons in the game. This is very evident when you go into a random party or play lockdown where people use everything from hammers, brandish lines, flourishes, DA, GF, etc.. The variety of weapons commonly being used speaks for itself in aspect of sword balance.

Considering swords are in a really good place right now I believe developers should be aspiring to bring the other weapons up to where swords are.

What is about to happen to the gunner's weaponry needed to happen there first. Guns exist in a very low damage-range where using the effective damage type for the right kind of monster makes a huge difference.

Whether you hit a slime with a Divine Avenger or a Gran Faust barely matters at all.

Whether you bomb a beast with Dark Briar Barrage or Nitronome doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. It literally takes the same amount of bombs for the most part.

Whether you shoot a slime with an Argent Peacemaker or a Sentenza basically doubles your time spent fighting that monster.

Where a bomber can bring their favourite line of bomb anywhere*, and a swordsman can bring their favourite line of sword anywhere**; a piercing Antigua will make a huge difference against beasts and fiends; and a shadow Autogun makes a giant difference against gremlins and slimes***.

*Basically the only exception here is DR. Even though mist bombs only come in elemental varieties, the statuses are still helpful all-around.

**There are a few exceptions. I'm considering the Rocket Hammer to be in the "Heavy Sword" line, since it's mostly a variety of Troika. Flourish can't be brought effectively against construct/slime. Cutters and Spur would benefit very largely from specialized branches. Ironically, those two swords share their damage values with guns.

***Provided Blitz gets its much-needed nerf. Right now Blitz can be used against neutral with no problem and even constructs if you go at it.

But he didn't say 1.5 years ago, he said -1.5 years ago. Moving on from elementary school math to junior high school math, a double negative makes a positive.

1.5 years ago = -1.5 years in the future
-1.5 years ago = -(-1.5) years in the future = 1.5 years in the future.

He said -1.5 years AGO.

In English, Ago basically counts as another negative, making it 1.5 years from now. You, sir, need to brush up on your English as well.

This is one of the most dumb arguments I've seen in a while. Stahp.

Wat? I love math.

Let's tear this down:
1. Swordies
Defensive sets:
Skolver - piercing and VH sword damage (Freeze: 8)
Vog - Elemental and VH sword ASI (Fire: 8)
Snarbolax - Shadow and VH sword damage (Freeze, poison 6) *SL*
(They all look different!)

Weapons:
4 Brandishes, x3 elemental and one shadow. Provides freeze, fire and shock upon charge attack. Combuster and Acheron has a built-in shield bumping mechanic that will let any mob 'folllow the wave'.
4 Toothpicks with 2 that offer stun and fire, considerably the best weapon against beasts.
2 Sealed line swords with satisfactory damage and range.
3 Troika line swords which offer stun, freeze and shock (though we shouldn't really count the shock one). The highest normal-damage weapon.
3 Calibur Swords with a defensive charge and fairly fast attack speed.
2 Cutter line quick swords, extremely fast and requires skill to use.
FoV, the charge kills pretty much any non-boss monster (even gremlins and beasts)
Hammer, very high DPS when used correctly.

Excluding that shock troika that's 17 swords in total. (didn't count Winmillion)
2 Deal shadow damage
5 deal elemental damage
14 deal normal damage
3 deal piercing damage
*Gran Faust is one of the only 3 sources of Curse the player can have in this game*
{S,E,P,N}={2:5:14:3}

Bombers:
Bombarstic Set - elemental and VH bomb damage (stun 8)
Mad Bomber Set - elemental and VH bomb CTR+damage (many status deductions)
Mercurial Demo Set - Elemental and med Bomb damage+MSI (shock 8) *SL*
Volcanic Demo Set - Elemental and VH bomb CTR (Fire 8)
Piercing: [?]
Shadow: [?]
Right, they don't exist.

Weapons:
x5 Haze bombes: Fire, Poison, Shock, Stun, Freeze. All elemental.
x6 Shard Bombs: 2 piercing, 2 shadow and one for normal and elemental.
x3 Blast bombs: all normal, 2 has an additional stun.
Dark Briar Barrage: Piercing, little knockback, the best universal weapon against fiend, beasts and gremlins.
Dark Retribution: Shadow
x2 Vortex bombs, one elemental offers shock and the other is shadow.
18 different 5* bombs.

So bombers have:
3 bombs that deal shadow damage.
7 bombs that deal elemental damage.
3 bombs that deal piercing damage.
4 bombs that deal normal damage.
{S,E,P,N}={3:7:3:4}
Nothing to defend against shadow.
Nothing to defend against piercing.
(I know there's a kat hat out there but that does not come as a set, ie: Helm+armour)

Bombs that flashes the screen too much or knocks everything back are beloved in parties, people will rage.

Gunners:
Justifier Set: Piercing, VH asi on guns. (+8 Stun)
Shadowsun Set: Shadow and VH damage on guns (+8 poison)
Deadshot Set: Shadow and Universal VH damage towards undead, med asi on guns (+6 curse)
Nameless Set: Elemental and VH asi on guns (+8 freeze)
In addition a Seerus Mask that has ctr med+asi low on guns

Weapons:
5 alchemer guns, 4 elemental and 3 offers a status: shock, fire and freeze. The other one is shadow.
2 Antigua guns, elemental and shadow.
2 magnus guns, piercing and normal, unable to move while shooting. Piercing one offers stun.
A Valiance, pure normal, AoE and knockback.
2 Pulsar guns, elemental and normal, AoE and knockback. Elemental Polaris gives shock.
2 Catalysers (I'm Australian), normal and shadow, charge act like sticky bombs and have pretty high damage.
2 Needle guns, piercing and one offers poison. Universal weapon against beast, gremlins and fiends. The highest DPS weapon. Unable to move and shoot.
1 Autogun, normal and offers fire status along with knockback. Unable to move and shoot.
17 guns in total.

So gunners have:
3 guns that deal shadow damage.
6 guns that deal elemental damage.
3 guns that deal piercing damage, all unable to shoot and walk.
4 guns that deal normal damage, one unable to shoot and walk.

Summing up, swordies have everything they need against all types of enemies while gunners need a gun that allows one to shoot and move (Yeah, 5* Anitgua is coming I think) and bombers need a proper elemental source (blast bomb?) Gunners also need an SL set and some kind of gun associated with Snarby or Vanaduke.

Visually, gunner hats all look the same. Deadshot and Justifier looks exactly the same as their 3* version while nameless is the same as shadowsun.
The only 3 sources of curse are from vials, Gran Faust and Maskeraith's Ultimate Chaotic Haze. I would like to see a gun that offers curse status and should probably have some sort of penalty. As for bombs a curse mist bomb would be either too OP or completely useless as bombs require charging to be placed.

tl;dr: Swordies have everything they need already, an update will be counterproductive unless they're introducing completely new swords with new mechanics or provide Winmillion with a 5*. In my opinion swordies already have a wide range of weapons and most of them does split-damage (Powerful against some enemies and not too back against others). Gunners dfeinitely need some more guns and the Iron Slug should be worked on. Bombers need a proper elemental sourse that won't make party members grant and a set that offers defence against piercing and shadow (Kat Hiss Cowl itself IS NOT a SET).

as a hybrid knight i can say that OOO is updating/tweaking the guns (maybe bombs in a later update) towards making them as viable as swords...

i use guns and bombs (shiv and Dark Retribution... note that these are more crowdcontroll than actualy used for killing things) pure as side arms. i tried gunning... and i didn't like it just for the simple fact that i takes to much time and there isn't enough diversity with the guns.

sure there are piercing/dark/elemental/normal guns

for piercing (and this counts for every weapon type) you don't realy have a choice on what weapon to pick
with piercing swords it's just the bonus effect and choice between 2 charges
for guns you either have the needle (massive focussed damage) or the callahan (powerfull 1 shot while again making you stop)
and bombs you choose between shards and DBB.

so again, as a hybrid i don't use diffrent guns to match my enemy's... i use powerfull guns that work in most situations (or as of late only the antigua lines and i don't play fiend lvl's because the lack of decent piecing weapons) and when i play a fiend lvl i use a neutral SWORD (i still don't like the piering sword combo, that's just personal prefference)

but enough ranting about this haha. what i'm getting at is, swords don't need an update (yet) sword users have a lot of diffrent sets and playstyles... where as gunners/bombers have a few armor sets and limited ammount of weapons so not much diversity going on there. and i think OOO wants to reduce the importance of UV's in PvE (encouraging making diffrent sets)

"Whether you bomb a beast with Dark Briar Barrage or Nitronome doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. It literally takes the same amount of bombs for the most part."

Gonna have to disagree with that but not because of damage rather because knockback from nitro tends to spread out mobs requiring a lot more positioning and adjusting.

Maybe just my opinion but part of what makes Dark Briar Barrage and Dark Retribution so good is their lack of knockback allowing players to effectively kite mobs into consecutive blasts.

It would be nice if bombers could at very least have one blast bomb alchemy line without knockback.

I'd say by the pointlessness in a lot of the weapons he's put up there, it's either the scissor blades or the lionheart, but you already knew that. (Just posting before someone else patronizes you)

He tried to act like Bopp and fell flat on his face.
*slow claps*

I do not see this person you speak of or perhaps your post is preemptive?