Bombers don't get any help with gear until endgame basically. Your charge times will be fairly long and you wont be doing high damage until you either get to 5*, get UV's on your bombs or level up your sprite. You can still try though and it's a fun way to play the game.

If you were dead set on using bombs I would get the demo set, craft up your blast bomb (its the cheapest one to make and is actually the most usable bomb at low levels), make a fire, poison and shock vaporizer. If you're able to I'd recommend getting the crimson hammer expansion too because the bomb you get for doing that mission is really good.

I'd recommend partying up with others too if you wanna bomb. Makes life a lot easier.

Bombers really get very little love until the endgame where they have nice Area of effect weapons.

If you want to be a good bomber you have to learn how to predict enemy movement. A good way to practice is by just using Calibur charges to fight enemies. If things get tough you can always go back to the hack and slash. When fighting enemies try to look for the tells (you can see when an enemy is about to attack what kind of attack they will do). Every enemy in the game has some windup before they attack (usually) and you can use this to keep you safe.

For first bombs I would suggest:

Blast Bomb
Spine Cone
Dark Shard bomb (unless you can get the OCH DLC)
Fiery Vaporizer

I would also greatly suggest getting a few non-Bomb items:
(These are for fighting enemies you have trouble bombing)

Fireburst Brandish
Flourish
Elemental Blaster
Owlite Shield
Needle gun
Shadowtech alchemer
Nightblade

For your first bomber armor set I would suggest bringing it to the Volcanic Demo. Mad Bomber is outclassed by the Chaos set (poor design but whatevs), and Chaos set is very unforgiving of mistakes. Volcanic Demo should offer you decent protection and the fire resist and lack of status penalties is nice.

Stick with Volcanic Demo if you find yourself getting hit a lot. Upgrade to chaos once you can dodge a bit better. Battle sprite perk of bomb dmg med and your bombs are maxed out. I wouldn't recommend BK, since it would be pretty silly to spend money on UVs to make the piece viable instead of getting chaos. You could get merc demo if you plan to LD bomb.

As for bombs to get:
Dark Briar Barrage
Nitronome
Electron Vortex
Dark Retribution
Ash of Agni
Maybe shards

Definitely get a Blitz too

You should upgrade the calibur, as it is the only sword you have. Soloing while you are a pure bomber might take a little long, so upgrading your sword might be a good idea. You should upgrade the Spine Cone, as it is very usefull for beast's and fiend's. You should go with the freezing line of vapourizer's too. It is very usefull for the Vanaduke.

Carbinus is right. Mad Bomber is obsolete. Just get Chaos instead. If you really want to continue with bomber armor, then as a beginner you should probably go for Volcanic Demo. You could also read the bomb section of my armor guide.

It doesn't matter much which weapon you upgrade first. Maybe you should look ahead in the missions (on the wiki) to see what monsters dominate your upcoming missions. Dark Briar Barrage (or whatever its 4-star version is called) is a fine idea. Consider getting one set of 5-star equipment before building up a bunch of 4-star equipment, just so that you can get access to the later missions as soon as possible.

Vloe, do not get Aegis just because the recipes are free. Recipes end up being a tiny part of the cost of a 5-star item. The orbs cost much more, and the Radiants cost extremely more than that (although they are not necessary for shields, because shields benefit so little from heating). Don't be tricked into getting items that you don't really want. Instead get Barbarous Thorn Shield, Grey Owlite, Volcanic Plate, Dread Skelly, or maybe Omega Shell. Once you've done Firestorm Citadel many times, consider Crest of Almire too.

Am I right that you don't own Operation Crimson Hammer? That's where you get Dark Retribution, which is awesome. In the meantime, I recommend that you upgrade Dark Briar Barrage and your sword.

I use the Omega shell a lot, it's the best all-round shield. Its high health makes it okay against all damage which makes gear selection much easier. Between that and Swiftstrike I almost never touch any other shields (btw Swiftstrike benefits bombers slightly by increasing the bombing animation speed, worth trying it out).

You will absolutely want to get a Shivermist Buster and a Dark Briar Barrage..
The enemies resistant to pierce should be killed with an Ash of Agni or Nitronome.

In the line above that you just said you should get a Shivermist Buster, and in the next line your saying get an Ash Of Agni.
Please try to read the forum before posting, because Vloe already has the 3* version of those bombs.

A lot of the more advanced players do not like the Shivermist buster for average play. While it does keep enemies from moving it also makes it so you can't shield bump them out of the way and it's doesn't keep them from attacking. In the wrong place you could end up making a wall of enemies that your allies get trapped behind.

As such you will need to use this bomb more and more sparingly as you upgrade your sets, a field of frozen enemies becomes an obstacle course but a few out of the horde can be a blessing.

A good tactic is to drop an Electron Vortex and Follow it up with a Shivermist bomb. The shock from the bomb will break the freeze very often and the freeze/shock combo will keep the enemies from moving much. Allies will be able to take advantage of this situation with relative ease.

well, there are only 3 shield(-serie)s with positive buffs:

-that snarbolax shield, which is totally pointless if you are a pure bomber,
-the swiftstrike, that reduces the bomb drop time by a barely even noteable time. (i recall something around 0,08 sec, not sure though),
-and the scarlet shield, that grants a max health Bonus.

Aside that there is one other shield Kind that has a Special efect that you may like as bomber: the Torto-shields, which have an area-stun-bash, that makes enemies move slower and thus can defend less against your bombs. The downside is a permanent slower movement.

Now there are 3 ways of how I do myselfe think about shields, when I use only bombs:

1. ,,I want to spamm and dont care about a shield because I cant rise my shield and Charge my bomb at the same time."
-> Here is where I use a Scarlet Shield, because the health Bonus i the only useful (and exspecially noteable) buff in my eyes.

2. ,,I will use bombs almost non-stop; and dodge attacks rather than shielding. This will give me the highest shield Regeneration Speed."
-> Since the shield health is not used, you can use shield bashes aside bombs when it is ready. With a torto-shield you have an additional 'stun-bomb' that Comes in Handy.

3. ,,I want to bomb, but when I am about to get damage, then I want to have a relieable shield that can block that attack and protect me from getting damage."
-> Here Comes almost any shield. I dont suggest swiftstrike or scarlet for this purpose. Since Tortoshields offer nice defense, they are also worth a though, when you aren't scared by the movement Speed decrease. Otherwise there are enough Options, but like alrady suggested: Grey Owlite should be your first shield for this purpose.

Shivermist buster prior to firestorm citadel is overkill and kind of a crutch at that- you need to learn how to dodge and take care of a wide variety of situations rather than just freeze them because you can't always just freeze them forever. It's also going to be slightly frustrating since your team members aren't always going to take advantage of it properly- they need to get it into their heads that frozen = charge and destroy.

Yeah if you get in a team try to make sure that they're guildmates and are smart enough to cooperate correctly with you. If not just explain it to them. As Fehzor put it so simply "Freeze = Charge and Destroy"

Don't you think greaver's are a bit fast moving?

i'm a top tier bomber and even some the things you guys have said helped me.

i'm a pure bomber and i'm always looking for ways to improve. i wish i had some of these tips when i 1st got into bombing..

my tips:
when in lockdown go recon always, tho some people might say defender is good to. but bombing as a recon help you sneak into the capture point and lay a bomb down so you can cap the point. bombs to use in lockdown are vapor bombs every one loves a vapor bomber on there team. when you bomb in lockdown don't go for dmg go for caps.

hope what i said helps you..