Spiral Knights - Bomber "guardians"--good tactics for playing well with bombers?

Bomber "guardians"--good tactics for playing well with bombers?

5 replies [Last post]

Thu, 01/09/2014 - 17:26

Halandin

I am an aspiring bomber, but I sometimes have troubles with people who don't work with my bombs to the best advantage, and with splitting up who takes on different enemies--like gun puppies and other turrets. Does anyone have tactics that they use for helping bombers in their groups?

Last night I went on a run, and found myself in a party with a guy with much better bomber gear (a lot of due to 5* bombs from before the radiant drought), and my bombs weren't helping much, so I decided to switch gear and see how I could enable the bomber to spread his wide-ranging destruction even better and without taking as much damage. I mean, I find it's really hard to not take damage as a bomber (unless you are skilled like Zeddy), and my occasional 3-5 second spikes of frozen screen don't help. Even in Zeddy's videos, you can see how you still have to tank some hits, often due to not being able to shield since you are charging a bomb, or losing track of projectiles while trying to find a good placement for a bomb. My theory is that a dedicated bomber plus a "guardian" can deal much more damage safely than a bomber and a swordie focusing on damage.

So, I put on a vog cub coat for some ASI, and equipped WRH, gigawatt, and a Dark Thorn Blade, and then followed the guy (now just the two of us) while we went through some fiend levels, including a compound. The compound went pretty well, although not as well as a full party with two dedicated bombers I had been in before had done. The fiends were also much easier, I sometimes had to tank a hit but with the bomber not having to stop to shield or recover from a status, we typically did not take much damage. The aggro of the fiends was all on the bomber due to his DBB, so I was able to safely hit fiends that got too close or started to attack the bomber. Whenever we came across turrets, some of the hardest targets for bombers, I was able to quickly smash them with my WRH or gigawatt.

A couple of important things (IMHO)--ASI is the most important, then damage for turrets and staggering enemies. At least one piece of armor that matches the strata and a shield that matches the enemy type and status is much more important. It's kinda sub-standard gear in dealing lots of damage, but better for the "utility" while letting the bomber max out damage and CTR. We all know that bombers have fewer options for gear, whether it be in damage type, status resistances, or shields. (Both swordies and gunslingers have shields that give bonuses to their weapons.) Mad Bomber, Chaos, and for the rich/lucky, BCK, all have poor status resists, unlike many of the dedicated sword/gunner gear. Sure, there is Volc Demo, but then you require both trinket slots with Elite Boom perks and sprite perk for max damage, and still don't have shock protection.

Other possible gear for bomber guardians:
As said, ASI first--for knockback weapons. WRH, DA, Troika lines, and BTB for ele-resistant levels (or along with a slower kb weapon).
Gun--elemental for turrets, and/or knockback or interrupting guns such as Valiance and Supernova.
Optional: Brandish for charge attacks into vortexes.

Any other ideas for playing well with our bomber friends?

Thu, 01/09/2014 - 21:13

Tqs-Remx

Hey there.

It's nice to see someone so considerate to support a support class player. /thanks

So you want advice on how to help us bombers.

The best advice is to stay out of our way.

Not trying to sound mean, but that's how it is.

When bombers place the very first bomb onto a group of freshly spawned mobs (and you're not prepared), we are practically painting a target onto ourselves. Meaning that the mobs will and always aggro on us until the mobs die or we die.

Yes I understand that swordies staying close to bombers with knockback weapons are good in defending us, but most of the time your knockback will push mobs away from the bombs blast radius and mess up the timing (for bomb charge and bomb deployment) or even worse, knocking mobs back into us, forcing us to take unnecessary damage. If bombers want to defend themselves, they'll probably have a knockback weapon equipped.

You don't have to worry about us. We skilled bombers are masters in close range juking/dodging/kiting since we cannot shield/dash/shield bump/shield bash while charging bombs. And if we were to take damage, it would be damage that we have taken accounted for long before the attack was made.

So yeah, help us by killing mobs that are not in the bomb's radius. (Unless it is a vortex bomb, then by all means kill them.)

I run with full mad bomber, and so should you if you want to be a bomber, cause dying faster teaches you how to live longer.

Apologies for any grammatical errors. English bad.

Fri, 01/10/2014 - 01:12

Quartiq

I'd phrase my advice a little differently.

When I run as a support bomber, I have a few goals for how I play:
1.) Help maximize my teammates damage as efficiently as I can.
2.) Prevent them from being overwhelmed by more monsters than they can handle at a time.
As such, I usually don't bring anything that has any kind of significant DPS as, as we all know, nothing in a bombers arsenal can match the power of a Blitz or Brandish charge, Alchemer internal ricochet, etc. and many of the damage bombs can be quite disrupting to a party in most cases. Therefore, I do not, and I also hope my teammates do not as well, expect to do much actual killing. So if all my party members just go off and do their own thing "staying out of my way" the whole time, it's just going to take longer and I will become just dead-weight to the party. Obviously there are some exceptions, like in the Grinchlin Assault where Shiv'ing re-spawning monsters in place so the other party members can deal with the other monsters without worrying about being additional threats is quite beneficial.
My advice instead would be: don't go rushing ahead of me, let me go first while you charge you attacks so that my bombs can be of greater assistance to you, then follow and pick your target accordingly. Again there are some exceptions, most notably turrets. Even if I were to bring a damage bomb and use a max damage set, due to the size of the party and as a result the increased HP of the turret, my attacks wouldn't do anything to cancel the turrets missiles, so unless you need me to stand in between you and the turret to use my shield as protection while you shoot (which i'm more than happy to do), there's not much I can effectively do to help you.
A few other random tips are:
-If the bomber is using VV, Menders and Silkwings should become your lowest priority; let them help you by weakening the other monsters then afterwards they can be easily disposed of.
-At party buttons that spawn monsters, when you're ready, just stay on the button with your attack charged or however you want to be ready. Most experienced bombers can be particular about both how they place bombs and when they detonate in relationship to when monsters spawn, so messing with that timing by possibly planting a bomb of your own can ruin whatever they're trying to accomplish, especially if you now need to spend time charging a different attack immediately afterwards. If there's a gate behind which the monsters will spawn, allow the bomber to go forward onto the button to plant a bomb or two if they wish before hopping on.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head at this late hour that hasn't already been said. All grammatical and sppeling errors are intentional. >;D

Fri, 01/10/2014 - 10:00

Thunder-The-Bright

gods ain't gonna help you, son.

I agree with remix, but I have to point out that this statement

It's nice to see someone so considerate to support a support class player.

is false. bombing is not support. mist bombing is. vortexing sort of due to the final explosion. pulsar line *should* be. you point that out in your own post remix: "kill the guys out of the bomb radius" pretty much means that we don't need anyone else to kill as long as we can move.

Fri, 01/10/2014 - 10:20

Skepticraven

Heh.

Good luck getting out of my "radius" when I shard/DR spam. My range is "everywhere".

Sun, 01/12/2014 - 11:59

Deosu

Here are some tips for the bomber companion.

Before I start, I really am glad to hear you are attempting to synergy with your fellow knights. That isn't something I see terribly often.

I'm a full-on bomb user myself, so all of this stuff comes from things that I myself really wish would happen more frequently. While I generally do pretty alright for myself, it could be better.

Here are my general tips in making your bomber partner happy:

* DO NOT knock enemies into your bomber
* DO knock enemies into the bomb
* DO take care of things that bombers typically have a hard time with
* DO NOT underestimate your bomber
* DO be patient

These might seem conflicting at first, but some explanation should clear the air.

As bombers, as Remx stated, we must be able to dodge through whatever enemies we may encounter. We are vulnerable folk when we are charging up shots and a single hit requires us to start over. That is why we often take into consideration the location of enemies when we decide to charge up, because we know we don't want to be right next to an enemy in range and in process of attacking. As you can probably imagine, if an attacking enemy is suddenly pushed towards us, we might not be able to get out of the way in time and that's an entire attack wasted. We will try and dodge it, but that only works so many times (regardless of weapon choice).

At the same time, we want our bombs to be effective, and the more enemies we can hit with a single attack, the better. This is true with any type of bomb, but especially mist bombs. If you can do what you can to make sure your bomber's bombs hit their mark, you are essentially helping your bomber help you. That is synergy at its finest. So if you're battling an enemy and you see a bomb about to go off right next to you, consider giving that enemy a nudge in the right direction!

These are not always mutually exclusive. One of the perks of bombs is that, due to the delay, the bomber may be somewhere else entirely when their bomb goes off. This allows you to send enemys into the bomb without sending them towards the bomber. That being said, pay attention to the bomb they are using and if the actual explosion might send the enemy towards the bomber. And if the bomber is hanging around his bombs, it might be a good idea to just leave him or her alone altogether.

Now, as also previously stated, there are some things that we have a lot of trouble with. We have problems with the turret family (Howliters, Puppies, and Polyps), devilites, and kats, in that order. The turrets should be obvious, since their ranged attacked produce so many more variables for us to kite through, and it can be quite a bit at times. Devilites are also obvious because of their quick attacked and sizable range. Kats are more bearable though because while they don't pose too much of a threat, they tend to escape bombs before they can go off because of how fast they move. If you see any one of those targeting the bomber, get it off the scent. Dealing with these enemies first and foremost will ensure that your bomber companion can do what they need to do everywhere else.

Oh, and if you see the opportunity to break crystals, pop item boxes, and throw switches for your bomber, take those opportunities if your bomber isn't already. We like not having to use three attacks for just a single crystal.

Do not make the mistake however of assuming that your bomber cannot deal with these things themselves. This is a big one and is key to working with a bomber. What separates bombs from swords and guns is that there is a learning curve to it. That is about it. Given enough time and practice the bomber can be as effective at the same tasks as swordsman and gunslingers. Keep that in mind the next time your bomber asks you do perform switches during the Roarmulus Twins fights (both of them), because chances are they might be successful and if you let that fruit develop even more their skill may surpass that of those with different weapon preferences. Also keep it in mind if your bomber is successfully aggro'ing a turret, or disabling a devilite.

We can work around our handicaps, so don't assume we can't.

And finally, just as a general rule both for working with a bomber and being a bomber yourself, have patience. These take time, both in the short term of an attack and the long term of learning how to do it well.

I hope this tips are helpful to anyone that aspires to be a bomber's best friend. I don't have any equipment recommendations, but I would chalk that up as just looking at your party composition and the environment you are going into.

Cheers!

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Bomber "guardians"--good tactics for playing well with bombers?