@eeks its a place it and show it off to your friends bomb XD
And yeah... Irontech Des is a lot worse than BAB... its more effective to switch to a master blast bomb and use that =S
Really, irontech d has no purpose... you cant even show it off to your friends as it does nothing special... its just the 4star irontech but more red.
Bomb balance issues
Sat, 07/02/2011 - 07:03
#52
sadface
Sat, 07/02/2011 - 10:45
#53
I don't understand the
I don't understand the purpose of having all the 5* blast bombs give a walk speed penalty except the Nitronome.
Nitronome has upper area damage, the highest blast radius, the shortest charge time (I think..?), and no runspeed penalty. Why would you use anything else when anything else comes with such huge drawbacks?
The other bombs need better. First, they should all have the same radius as the Nitronome. Second, strongly reconsider the walking penalty on all of them. Mobility is not just important in SK, it's literally life and death. Even moreso for bombers since they can't bring up the shield bubble with anything like the speed of a sword or gun user.
Turn the BAB into a real crowd control device. Halve the damage, Halve the charge time, drop the fuse time to 60% of current and keep the knockback. Now you've got a low damage AOE that tosses monsters into the wind on short notice. It'll take forever to kill anything, but when you need monsters out of your face, out of your face they will be.
For the irontech/destroyer, have it basically match the nitronome (and master blast, at 4*), but change the knockback into knockdown. Still a good damage weapon that can disrupt monster attacks, but now you can choose between them whether you want them blasted in one place, or flung out for safety.
Sat, 07/02/2011 - 12:45
#54
Re: Bomb Walk Speed
>>Second, strongly reconsider the walking penalty on all of them. Mobility is not just important in SK, it's literally life and death. Even moreso for bombers since they can't bring up the shield bubble with anything like the speed of a sword or gun user.
I think reduced bomb walk speed on bombs, in general, seems to be a unnecessary unless they're given something in return (like extremely short charge and/or fuse).
Bombs w/ walk speed penalties:
Graviton/Graviton Vortex
Irontech/Irontech Destroyer
Big Angry Bomb
The graviton bomb receives spawn-exploitation duty with the rare drop and kite scenario but outside of that it is difficult to use in battle because of the speed penalty. Likewise, the BAB is almost unusable solely due to the walk speed penalty. Not only is dodging projectiles difficult and impossible in some cases while charging the bomb, but short range melee attacks and tackle attacks are basically impossible to avoid while charging the bomb.
There has to be some give and take here. If a bomb has a severe walk speed penalty than it should gain something in return. I almost feel like anything that takes a walk speed penalty should have a charge time that starts under 2s (i.e faster than a blast bomb), hell maybe even less than 1.5s. In exchange for mobility you are granted faster deployment. Instead all the low walking speed bombs are doubly penalized. Graviton has "medium" walk speed penalty and a longer charge (haze bomb charge). Big Angry bomb has severe walk speed penalty, long fuse, and long charge. Irontech has "medium" walk speed penalty, short charge (blast bomb charge) and extremely long fuse.
The end result is that people will just end up not using these bombs. Two wrongs (or three wrongs in BAB's case) don't make a right.
Sat, 07/02/2011 - 14:04
#55
Bombtastic
Guys. The bombtastic Suit has a couple pros.
The mad bomber has lower curse and poison resistance (bleah)
The bombtastic still does xtra bomb dmg (=|)
Otherwise, i agree thats it pretty bad, excpet about the visual department. thats opinion.
Sat, 07/02/2011 - 15:47
#56
@lithanium I know you're only
@lithanium
I know you're only jesting but mad bomber set has no negative curse resistance. Also, it might do more damage (+med) as a set but even two low ctr bonuses yield higher DPS and you can't maintain status fields as well as even lowly 4* armor.
Also, you're right; the appearance of bombastic demo is open to opinion but one would hope that a 5* armor upgrade would result in more than just a palette swap.
Wed, 08/10/2011 - 22:52
#57
Hey, remember about this
Hey, remember about this thread? So since this thread was made, we've seen two of the worst bombs in the game get serious nerfs. It kind of makes me wonder if anyone even reads this. :/
Ionized Salt Bomb
Summary: Really oddly designed bomb that isn't useful for damage or status.
-
Charge time: The charge time on this bomb makes it a really bad choice for non bombers. IMO any bomb that loses a lot of its usefulness when CTR bonuses are removed is really poorly designed (I'm looking at you BAB). The ISB has a charge time of 4.2 seconds at level 1 and 3.6 seconds at level 10.
To put this into perspective: that's a slower charge time than a Divine Avenger. Again I'm comparing a sword to a bomb but the DA's charge is basically an AOE attack that hits WAY harder than ISB. What's worse is that at MAXIMUM! CTR, the ISB is still slower than a level 1 blast bomb's charge and over 400ms slower than a medium CTR (natural level 10) blast bomb.
Even under the old shock status this was pathetic and unnecessary but now it is a joke.
- Damage: As if a High Bonus to Slime perk on a split piercing bomb wasn't an insult enough, normal/pierce is a really awkward combination. Compared to the RSS it is worse at undead, construct and marginally better at gremlins/beast. Unfortunately both gremlins and beast dodge the projectiles so overall the damage is worse and this isn't even taking into account the slower charge which means lower DPS.
- Status: Shock isn't as good as it used to be. It was nerfed during the enemy balance patch and as a result the only good thing about this bomb was lost to it. Hitting a single target with shock isn't very good and now you can hit large groups with shock with voltaic tempest, this bomb has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Here is more perspective for you: The Voltedge has a charge time that is .6s faster than the ISB hits for more damage AND can shock a larger grouping than the ISB. I mean.. seriously?
----
----
Suggestion: Keep the charge time the same but change the 8 shards to pure shadow bullets similar to shadowtech alchemer bullets. Let it bounce twice per "shard". Keep or remove the shock, it doesn't really matter since shock isn't that good.
=====================================
Venom Veiler Revisited
Summary: Nerf was unnecessary. This thing needs a serious buff.
Nobody one shed a tear when this bomb was nerfed because nobody uses it but this bomb got hit hard. The shorter mist duration hurt this bomb way more than shivermist or ash of agni. The poison status that the VV inflicts already doesn't last very long after the mist goes away and shortening the radius and duration hurt a lot. This bomb is now completely unusable solo imo. By the time you switch off VV, the poison is almost done which means you have to basically be actively dropping poison bombs at the cost of dealing damage.
In a party scenario I played around with possibilities of this bomb being useful but even then I don't see it. The debuff adds about 10% damage to enemy attacks. Let's say people do 100DPS so a bomber doling out poison non-stop will allow the party to do 330DPS instead of 400DPS in exchange for decreased enemy attack power. I don't think this is worth it at all. If you compare VV to weapons like the new blight needle, the give and take isn't nearly as great. For example 4 blitz needles w/ 4x charges will deal 8400 damage total wheras 3 blitz needles with a blight needle would be dealing 8430 damage with the attack debuff.
I think this bomb needs a huge duration and/or radius buff to make it even usable and even then I'm not even sure it'd crack my arsenal on any tier. One of the issues with poison in comparison with other status bombs is that you really only need to poison the enemy closest to you. Passively poisoning targets that aren't going to attack or that you aren't going to attack isn't beneficial to you in any way. So while this does affect an area, the number of targets that get poisoned that is actually beneficial to you is only a fraction of that area.
=====================================
Stagger Storm
Summary: This bomb's effectiveness does not match the other bombs in its series
I know this bomb only exists so that you could remove alt rage crafting of 1* haze bombs but it would be really nice if it was actually a useful bomb. The cost of this bomb is more than any other bomb other than the Electron Vortex (300 Krogmo Coins? ouch!) and it happens to be, in my opinion, the worst 4/5* bomb in the game. This bomb was nerfed before it was ever even released; the same issues with the VV affect this bomb. Stun seems to last 2-4 seconds after mist disappears which makes this useless for solo play. In party play stunning a room isn't very useful compared to fire, ice, shock, hell, even poison. On top of that there are some serious issues with stun:
- Enemies attacking while stun wears off will complete their attack abruptly making it extremely difficult to predict
- Projectile attacks have short attack animations and are more or less unaffected by stun
- Lunge attacks can still occur at similar to regular speeds WITHOUT any animations
- Spike attacks (lichen, slimes) occur at the same speed and are equally hard to avoid
Suggestion (VV and SS): I think the problem is that you can't just shoe horn these passive status effects into the haze line. Poison and Stun aren't Fire and Ice so giving them the same body isn't fair. Ice's freeze maintains for a long time after the mist dissipates and as a crowd control bomb it is unparalleled. Fire deals active damage during and after the mist goes away. To compete, poison and stun have to bring something to the table and they just don't do that. On top of being arguably weak statuses, they don't last long enough to be helpful in solo or group play. From my gameplay, I usually use poison and stun vials for emergencies. Poison to help kill a single target faster and stun to give myself a breather from a group. Both of these are useful because they deploy extremely fast. As haze bombs they are a bit silly since the charge on the bomb is so slow (2.7seconds at level 10, no uv/bonuses)
Possible solutions:
- WAY faster charge times and a faster recovery time compared to other bombs. This will allow bombers to deploy this and immediately take advantage of the situation
- Larger radii, longer mist. This needs to be bigger and longer than pre-patch haze bombs imo. This seems like putting a bandaid on a mortal wound but I think it would help make these partially more usable.
- Fix stun animations/effects. This should be done anyway but seriously
- Completely redesign these bombs This one is the most extreme but I feel like these "passive" statuses are partially only useful as secondary effects. As a primary effect it is more often then not, not worth a slot in your arsenal. My suggestion for a redesign would be to basically create a nitronome with secondary effect of poison/stun. The attack power would be ~80% of a regular nitronome but as a result the bomb would receive a chance to inflict status. The poison nitro could retain knockback wheras the stun one might have less knockback.
Tue, 10/04/2011 - 08:52
#58
Fix low level bombs
All low level bombs (1* to 3*)
Summary: They suck.
Their radiuses are simply too small to be viable. Even if 1* bombs had the same radius as 5* bombs, they still wouldn't be that great seeing as newbies aren't able to run around with high amounts of CTR. Consequently newbies are unable to see the glory that is bombing.
Suggestion: Make 1* bombs through 5* bombs all have max radius.
Tue, 10/04/2011 - 14:07
#59
Bomb: Heavy
Bomb: Heavy Deconstructor
Summary:It is inferior to the other bombs of its set.
The bomb's stats are worse than those of the Master Blast Bomb, which is another 4* blast bomb of the same set. But it does not have a 5* variant, therefore it could be said to be inferior in about every possible way to the other Blast Bombs.
Also, I am thinking of getting a BAB, and I want it not necessarily for damage, although using it inconsistently coupled with a Graviton Vortex might be nice, but for a protection bomb. So, any supporting? advice?
Tue, 10/04/2011 - 17:15
#60
Increase duration of stun and poison effects
The haze and toxic line bombs should have the duration of the status effect increased significantly (doubled at least).
Unlike freeze, fire, and shock, stun and poison don't do any damage. Their advantage is in helping players kill enemies weakened by the effects, but the stun and poison effects from the bombs as they are now barely last long enough for teammates to hit a single monster under the effect, let alone do damage to a group of stunned/poisoned enemies.
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 07:18
#61
New shard bomb lines
Summary: Very low damage, knocks enemies everywhere, shards go into walls etc. Is outplayed by nitronome by a LOT.
Now, that I've done my little thingy, I want other peoples to keep listing the cons and pros of bombs, esp. the new shard bombs.
YES THIS IS A BUMP.
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 10:09
#62
I nearly had a heart attack when it looked like Nick had posted a thread asking about bomber opinions. Then I saw it was a year old.
New Shard Bomb lines
Summary: These bombs are outclassed by other bombs at everything. Its very few advantages are not played strongly enough.
Let me lead in by saying that I have tested every shard bomb, but only Shocking Salt Bomb and Radiant Sun Shards have received extended testing. The rest I've only played around with on the test server, trying to find some kind of redeeming qualities within them. It's been a very fruitless search. Eeks has a wiki page in which he details the many, many problems with this bomb. I have a thousand suggestions on how to improve these six bombs, but first I really have to ask this:
What is the point of shard bombs now?
Exhibit A: The bombs suck at damage versus any amount of targets
Is it, as people have surmised, a damage bomb? Examined in this light, it stands to reason that Deadly Shard Bomb should kill enemies faster than Nitronome, at the expense of range and some ease of handling. However, if you hit an enemy with a blast + 2 shards, you just barely outdamage Nitro. Blast + 1 shard does not. The usual case is hitting with blast + 1 shard or just 1 shard, and as such it does not outperform Nitro as a damage bomb. It's not even close. If the point of shard bombs it to be damage bombs, the damage output need to increase to somewhere between 50% and 100%, at least for the Deadly Shard Bomb and perhaps a bit less for the other bombs' neutral damage.
The hard-coded max shard hit limit of 3 per enemy is not helping the bomb as a damage bomb, either! This was the one area in which I saw this bomb had some kind of potential, but big enemies are the weakest area these bombs have. Especially combined with most big enemies blocking shards so that they either disappear, or land so far away from them that they explode without harming the enemy at all. If the bomb are supposed to be a sword/bomb middle ground where it trades out the ability to damage many enemies for packing more punch against few enemies, it faily miserably in this regard as well.
Exhibit B: The bombs suck at crowd control
This is actually the bombs' strong point! The blasts have more interruptive and knockdowny power than any other bomb do... on the shards. This would be a nice bonus if the bombs were more powerful, but as it stands it's just not enough. Crowd control is something you do for player safety, that means it can't afford to wait for the fuse time of a Big Angry Bomb when the payoff is just a little interruption in a teensy-tiny area that's easily avoided. The core blast needs its interruptive power increased to the same as the shards, and the shards should even be a bit stronger. Currently you can't consistently knock over a mecha knight with Deadly Crystal Bomb, and two shards are needed instead. Up the power so just one shard is needed for this, let the core blast consistently knock over gremlins and wolvers in danger rooms and shadow lairs.
I would prefer this over the damage buff, however.
A lot of enemies can't be interrupted or knocked back just like that. Take a page from the Shocking Salt Bomb and put a status on each of the other shard bomb lines as well. NOW they're crowd control bombs.
Exhibit C: The bombs suck for solo runs
There are a lot of enemies these bombs are awful at, and maybe three they're decent against. Trojans make the shards disappear. Large bosses like Maulos make the shards spawn outside of their blast radius so that they don't hurt him at all. The hit-limit bugs out and even small enemies like gun puppies end up invincible when comboed too well. The damage is low. The crowd control is erratic and unpredictable against enemy types that aren't affected by knockdown. For both safety and damage, literally any other bomb will perform better.
Exhibit D: The bombs suck for use in parties
With a Nitronome, your teammates can at least have a decent grasp about where the enemies will be knocked off after the blasts. With a Nitronome, the chance of your teammates knock all the enemies out of the blast radius before the bomb goes off is very small, but this happens all the time with shard bombs. I can't ask them to try knocking enemies onto the shards, either. Not only is it a tricky task, but they'll be rewarded by an enemy being knocked to somewhere randomly around them, which isn't a good thing at all.
I would suggest figuring out just what you want these bombs to be, then reworking the bombs so that they fill that role. Additionally, I suggest fixing the numerous bugs plaguing them.
I would also strongly suggest to not release things nobody wants that you know are broken, at least until said broken aspects are fixed.
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 10:42
#63
...
"What is the point of shard bombs now?"
Well they should obviously be for damage, for that was the purpose of the old shard bomb lines. You don't just completely change the purpose of a bomb for balance. Oh wait.... this is OOO. Great points though, Zeddy. But you didn't talk about what should happen for these to be good in LD. The old shards were the best bomb in LD, AND they had PvP testing for the new shard bombs, so they should obviously be made to be usable in LD. Right now people just walk all over them in LD it's NOT funny anymore, I'm getting p*ssed. Oh, and it's not just them walking over my shards, it's me also walking all over their shards. Seriously, I don't fear other shard users. I walk over their shards, and I poke them. Not even scared of SSB, which has Shock, which is basically a death sentence to me, a Chaos user. For these to be USABLE in LD, the charge time needs t be reduced and the shards should explode one second after the core blast.
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 11:02
#64
The long fuse time actually
The long fuse time actually has some utility in the clockworks. Specifically, Radiant Sun Shards' long fuse allows you to drop bombs a greater distance away from devilites, then lure them on. The timing between the blast, shards and consequent dropped bombs combined with the stun effect allows to chain devilites to death before they even get an attack off. Stun bug does not apply to chained devilites since their attacks get interrupted.
This is one of the very few redeeming factors of these six bombs. Others include, and are actually strictly limited to:
-The shadow bombs can knock over gremlins in Stratum 5. In Stratum 6, you need to hit with the shards. Meanwhile, Dark Briar Barrage will still knock over gremlins anywhere in the clockworks outside danger rooms.
-The piercing bombs can knock over wolvers in Shadow Lair Snarby, provided you hit with the shards. Meanwhile, nobody cares because it's just wolvers. It'd also be of considerably more value if the core blast was brought up to the power of the shards.
-Double-sharding a mecha knight with Deadly Crystal Bomb can knock them down. It's actually a very nice bomb for fighting Mecha Knights.
-The bomb does not knock back Lumbers, which I find to be an excellent feature.
-Sharding turrets can interrupt them, but so can Nitronome.
Overall, any of these targets are still taken out better with other bombs.
As for Lockdown, SSB has some utility provided the bomber is protected by a teammate. Effectively, the bomber is creating a battlefield scewed in favour of his comrade. Should the enemy focus on attacking the bomber, the teammate will just shank them while they're open. Since this requires teamwork in Lockdown, you never see it pulled off.
If one of the shard bombs had freeze slapped onto it, it would arguably be more useful than Cold Snap.
If the bombs exploded on contact, I would kiss them. Which would blow off my lips, but it'd be worth it.
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 12:18
#65
"provided the bomber is
"provided the bomber is protected by a teammate"
Yeah, that's the problem. Now if a bomber happens to find himself alone, he's screwed. He's got NOTHING to fight a skolver with. I have managed to hit people with the shards a couple time when they were distracted by a team mate, but it's hardly worth it. And they usually go after me first, anyways, since I'm such easy points towards their score. A Haze bomb can protect me, heck even a Nitronome does better at keeping away skolvers then the shards. They need to be FAST to get them away and protect us.
"If the bombs exploded on contact, I would kiss them. Which would blow off my lips, but it'd be worth it."
YES^
Mon, 09/10/2012 - 14:31
#66
All Shard Bombs
Summary: All shard bombs are far weaker than similar bombs, meaning that they don't fulfill their role of pure damage options for bombs.
Description: See- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/63067
Tue, 09/11/2012 - 00:48
#67
@Serell
Not to mention that in the event I am supporting a teammate mid-combat, I'd still prefer using Cold Snap.
Tue, 09/11/2012 - 02:29
#68
Irontech
(several people probably already mentioned this, i didn't read all the posts.)
Irontech Bomb/Irontech Destroyer
Summary:
The bombs have an extremely long charge time, and slow you down, but the pros don't outweigh the cons.
Basically, the irontech bombs are blast bomb clones except they have more range, are more powerful, and stun. But they also slow you down and take quite a while to explode. The slowing down and long charge are not a bad thing; if they were not like this than the bomb would become too much like the blast bombs, and it will lose variety. But the only problem is that the damage output is just not worth waiting around and walking around slowly for. If the damage was greater, and there was a higher chance to stun, then this bomb might be worthwhile.
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Shard bomb & co.
Summary:
the new shard bomb/dark matter bomb/etc. are extremely weak.
The new versions of these boms tick all the right boxes. They have a fast charge, they don't slow you down, and they have a great range and area attack. But they are extremely weak. Maybe in sacrifice for some more damage they could get a slight range reduction, but right now you need to spam quite a bit to get a small amount of damage.
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Nitronome
Summary:
This bomb gives me headaches (literally) from the bright flash and shaking.
This is a more serious matter, it's not gameplay, but more of a health/comfort thing. The nitronome is a great bomb, no problems here gameplaywise. But because the charge is so fast, getting this bomb with max ctr can cause alot of flash and shaking. Not only is the continous shaking of the screen inhibiting and very annoying for gameplay, but the constant bright flashes gives me headaches. This is an easy thing to fix, and I doubt anybody will have any problems with this slight graphical improvement. Even if I am not using the bomb, a party member cna become very annoying. I was playing LD, and someone on my team had a nitronome. I had to leave because I was afraid I might get a seizure. PLEASE fix this.
---
thanks!
Wed, 09/12/2012 - 17:59
#69
Shard bombs
Summary: As a dedicated and passionate bomber, I have some input as far as shard bombs go. The general issue involves usability problems regarding unpredictable bomb behavior.
The shard bombs have a unique and useful concept for dealing damage, but damage is not the issue. The issue primarily arises from knockback, and fuse times. The outer ring of shards spawns nicely after detonation of the initial charge, thereafter, these shards take a surprisingly long time to actually detonate themselves [ I suggest simply turning down the time it takes for the outer ring to detonate]. The second issue is in knockback; As far as the initial detonation, the knockback is delivered as expected, neatly pushing most monsters to the outer radius, but the problem is, once again, the secondary ring shards. The shards thenselves have a rather small blast radius, and have the same knockback seen from the initial charge, but te epicentre of each independant shard is so close to the perimiter of it's own blast, that the direction of the knockback can be near unpredictable. [I suggest maybe giving the outer ring of shards a source of 'knockdown' rather than knockback, as well as slightly increasing the radius' of each, so that the blast of one may even slightly intersect that of it's neighbor].
I hope my input is seen logically, and Helps to aid in improving the bomb's overall usability and reliability.
Sun, 09/16/2012 - 00:04
#70
Big Angry Bomb/Irontech Destroyer
Summary: The big angry bomb does not cancel monster's attacks, and directly conflicts with the irontech destroyer.
Description: Big Angry Bomb(BAB)'s charge turns monsters into projectiles, and can be used to grief your team. In fact, using it correctly (in such a way that it hits enemies) is almost a surefire way to grief your team. The irontech destroyer is exactly the same as the big angry bomb, except does not have as much knockback or damage potential, making it almost entirely useless.
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 16:00
#71
Irontech/Irontech
Irontech/Irontech Destroyer
Summary: The Irontech line is completely inferior to the other Blast Bombs
With the buffs made to the ID and BAB way back in August the BAB is now a viable alternative to the Nitronome, and as a result the Irontech is now completely useless. The Nitro enables players to aggressively box enemies into corners or shield defensively and offers a fast, immediate way of dealing with present threats and is a pretty all-purpose bomb in the Clockworks, and the only particuarly viable dps bomb in Lockdown. The Big Angry Bomb enables players to act more defensively, utilizing the massive knockback and stun with is useful in certain situations like the Unknown Passage. Thr Irontech is some sort of 'middle road' with the "inbetween" damage and knockback, but it's too slow to compete with Nitro and too weak to compete with BAB, leaving literally no niche for it whatsoever.
Suggestions: Increase the movement speed while charging and the fuse time to bring it back in line with the Nitronome, but leave the charge time itself in-line with the BAB. Additionally change the current Mild chance to inflict Moderate Stun with Mild chance of inflicting Moderate Fire. As it is way too many bombs inflict Stun and Fire inherently works well with the nature of Blast Bombs since the knockback increases the time the monster requires to get back in attacking range, thus more time for fire damage to apply.
Deconstructor/Heavy Deconstructor
Summary: Weak bomb-line that stops at 4* with no redeeming qualities
The Decon-line as it is, is completely inferior to every other Blast Bomb. The meager damage bonus doesn't make up for it's pitiful damage output and the fact the line stops at four stars leaves it completely pointless.
Suggestions: Make the Decon line go up to 5* and change the damage type to either Elemental or split Normal/Elemental. In combination with the Construct damage bonus this would make the bomb very effective at its designated role (Killing Constructs, not unlike how RSS was made pure Piercing to deal with Fiends better) and as has been mentioned in other threads, this would add another Elemental DPS bomb since there's currently less of them than either Shadow or Pierce.
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 14:30
#72
BAB is a decent bomb now?
BAB is a decent bomb now? when did that happen?
I might just have to craft one if that's true.
Wed, 12/05/2012 - 12:30
#73
@Verodius: Ever since the
@Verodius: Ever since the patch that gave it the same radius as Nitro and a stun chance, whilst it requires a lot more active effort on the user's part to maximize it's effectiveness when compared to Nitro, it's absolutely a good bomb once you start learning how to utilize it.
Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:12
#74
I would disagree with Irontech Destroyer/heavy deconstructor being completely inferior. They're far more party friendly than either of the other blast bomb lines- nitro is spammy and chaotic, while bab throws enemys everywhere. Irontech may have less damage than either of the others, but it also has less knockback, and is less spammy than nitronome due to its longer charge time and higher damage.
Heavy deconstructor is also better than nitronome as a side bomb on construct levels- less knockback (with only slightly less damage due to its construct UV) makes it viable, if only barely. A 5* line, as well as elemental damage, would definitely help it to stand out. Master blast bomb is better than it in almost every other scenario, however.
Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:32
#75
Considering Decon also has to
Considering Decon also has to compete with Dark Retribution though for mauling Constructs, purely being able to situationally outperform Master Blast isn't a whole lot of use in the grand scheme of things. I mean being limited to four stars is probably it's biggest weakness, but a change in damage type would make it infinitely more useful a weapon.
I guess I'll concede that Irontech may be more party-friendly since I haven't really used it extensively, but I'm not sure that alone outweighs the disadvantages.
Thu, 12/06/2012 - 19:08
#76
Bomb Buffs Needed
Nitronome
Summary: Nitronome is excellent except for damage.
Nitronome has a good radius, charge time, and walk speed. It's one of the few viable bombs in Lockdown, yet it still has one major flaw: the dps sucks. It can often take 4-5 blasts with nitro to kill someone, but a Divine Avenger / Gran Faust can do this in just a few quick (relative) swings. As little as two is possible (I think I've been one hit? not sure)
Hitting someone with a bomb is usually difficult because of the red sight lines. Usually blasts are avoided, so when they do hit it's important that the damage be significant enough to matter. An increase of 15-30% would help a lot, and shouldn't imbalance gameplay.
Usually when I'm playing Lockdown Nitronome is a last resort bomb:
1. My opponent(s) are weakened by other attacks and I "guess" a nitro hit will kill them. (finishing move)
2. They are distracted, so I can hit them with nitronome (they are too busy to see the red sight lines).
3. I've cornered them with mist, so I switch to nitronome to punish them. (highly situational)
4. I'm trapped in my base and need to nitro on the other side of the force field to blast my way out. (highly situational)
5. I'm playing against incompetent imbeciles who blindly walk over nitro sight lines in every situation. (any good player avoids the blasts easily)
6. I'm lucky enough that the capture point is so cramped that they can't avoid getting hit. (again highly situational)
At most I'll get 2 maybe 3 kills total with nitronome, and the most damage I ever do is 4-5k per game. Hardly anything to write home about. Good sword players can get 10-20k damage or more.
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Sat, 12/08/2012 - 11:56
#77
Intersting
Very Interesting Indeed.
Big Angry Bomb
Summary: It's bomb that doesn't live up to its name. It isn't big and the only thing angry about it is how mad the owner will be that he wasted 1200CE crafting it.
I wanted to wait until I heated this up to level 10 and then put it to use it for at least 5-10 runs before making a post in this thread regarding its balance or lack thereof but just using it in its infant state has left me with a foul, foul taste in my mouth. I've tried to put the bomb to use in multiple T3 scenarios and it has has handicapped me in every single one.
First off, there is nothing "Big" about this bomb. The radius is the same size as a Master Blast Bomb which is a shame. Going from the 4* MBB to the BAB basically nets you more damage/push at the loss of charge time, walk speed, bomb radius, and fuse time. On paper this sounds likean awful trade-off but it could be usable if the damage was high enough. In practice though all the things above combine for a nearly unusable bomb.
The problem can't really be pinned specifically on the charge time, walk speed, radius or fuse time but the combination of the three is what really hurts the bomb.
CHARGE TIMES
BOMB NONE .LOW .MED HIGH VHGH ULTR .MAX
BAB- 3180 2960 2700 2447 2230 1975 1755
LEVI 3500 ---- 3000 ---- 2460 ---- ----
*Time in milliseconds (round UP to get reliable charge times w/ latency)
At Level 10, the BAB has a charge time only 300 milliseconds longer than a Leviathan. During this time you're walking about ~2-3x as slow which leaves you immeasurably more vulnerable. After release the Leviathan delivers its payload immediately, dealing nearly 5x the damage of the BAB to nearby targets. Three seconds later the BAB explodes to a round of applause. It deals 1/5th the damage but to a radius twice as long as the Leviathan and by the time the BAB explodes the Levi is ready for its second charge. Huh?
I know this isn't a fair comparison; I'm comparing a bomb to a sword but 6 seconds from charge to payload is enough time to charge a Leviathan TWICE and deliver 10x the damage to a a cluster of targets. Let that sink in a little bit.
So what is the BAB? Is it a defensive bomb? An offensive bomb? A crowd control bomb?
Defensive Bomb
The BAB's biggest claim to fame other than its groan is the massive pushback it has. The knockback on the BAB is closer to the DA charge spectrum of things which gives it a huge defensive advantage. Deploying a BAB allows you to push groups of mobs out of your way. Consider the scenario in which you would need to use the BAB defensively though, when you are in a corner surrounded by mobs. Here the longer charge time and long fuse cripples you. By the time the BAB is finished charging (if you even live long enough) and the fuse goes off, 6 seconds has elapsed if your shield it is about to be.
Offensive Bomb
The BAB's second biggest claim is its high damage. I don't know the specific damage numbers in comparison to the Nitronome since I haven't heated to 10 and likely never will, but it is more than the Nitronome. The immediate thought is that it could be a better damage bomb than the Nitronome but consider this:
At D27 a level 10 Nitronome has a base damage of 200 (same as Leviathan) which gives it a measured charge time of 1866ms. From my observations, a level 10 BAB will have a base damage approximately 25% higher than the Nitronome which would mean it would be dealing ~250 damage at D27 with a measured charge time of 2700ms.
[damage per second]
D27 Nitronome:
Base Damage: 200
Charge time: 1900ms (I'll even round up to be generous to the BAB)
DPS: 105.3
Deployment time: ~4 seconds
D27 BAB:
Base Damage: 250
Charge time: 2700ms
DPS: 92.59
Deployment time: ~6 seconds
Note: Even if Pupu's numbers of 1.5x damage is correct, the BAB would only be dealing 111dps
[area of effect]
The area that the BAB covers is roughly 1.9 times SMALLER than the Nitronome while only doing 1.25 times more damage.
So not only does it under-DPS the Nitronome, but it does it to a smaller area while taking 30% longer to deploy. These are just numbers though. As you know, in practice it is more than just numbers at play. As it happens, in actual usage the BAB is even worse than the numbers would tell you.
Crowd Control Bomb
So what's left? It isn't a very good defensive bomb and it isn't a good offensive bomb. It does have HUGE knockback which, if positioned correctly, could fling every mob in a room into a corner, right? The problem is the delayed deployment time makes this impossible to do consistently. The longer you wait for the bomb to explode, the more variables that come to play. Can you kite the enemy into the damage ring? Will it explode in time? Will the bomb be positioned correctly relative to the enemies, releative to the area you want to fling them into? Because of the slow walk speed, the bomb has to be deployed further away from the enemies to keep yourself out of danger. After this, it's a matter of luck rather than skill or cunning to get them where you want them. As such, it isn't as much of a crowd control bomb as it is a chaos bomb.
The radius doesn't really help things. As if UPGRADING your 4* bomb into a smaller radius wasn't a huge slap in the face already... Having such a huge push on such a small radius makes things quite unusable. When you're trying to push enemies, a larger radius gives you more fudge room. When they get close to the center of the blast radius they're going to get pushed in a very precise direction which is impossible to predict 6 seconds out. Assuming they even make it into the tiny radius, it is nearly impossible to get them where you want them. The beauty of the nitronome is that you can split areas and push in general directions. With a bomb like the BAB, with such a huge push, you're pushing enemies into very very specific directions, only you can't control which direction you'll be sending them.
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So if the BAB isn't a defensive bomb, offensive bomb, or crowd control bomb, what is it exactly? To me it seems the BAB is a novelty bomb. I'll admit when you position it just right and get lucky it is hilarious to see a phantom get flung off the map or a gremlin fly across the room and land on his back 2 miles from you. I'm really not sure how to fix it. I could make suggestions like making the fuse negligible, speeding up walk speed, shortening the bomb radius and increasing damage (to above levi charge) to make it like a slightly bigger radius, higher damage dealing, Leviathancharge attack (which would be the answer for sniping single targets for bombers) or lowering the fuse/charge/damage and increasing the radius to make it the ultimate push bomb but I feel that would be a disservice to such a novel bomb.
Instead, the BAB should be moved to 4* where it would be less insulting to any player who crafts it. I mean, who gets upset when they craft a 4* Ionized Salt Bomb despite its faults? Throwing away 400CE is a lot easier to swallow than 800CE.
BTW: Having used this bomb and seen what it can do, I have only negative feelings towards the Irontech Destroyer. Don't think that it gets off the hook. The Irontech does even less damage than the BAB, has a way higher deployment time, and has less pushback. What is the purpose of this again?
Cliffs: Alternate Blast Bomb alchemy lines need a major reworking.