The difference in defense is so small. It looks like Dread Skelly has a lot more shadow than Snarby, but if you measure it out it only comes to about 20%. Let's say a typical shadow hit from a Howlitzer might knock off 7 pips of health wearing full Dread Skelly. In full Snarby that might be 8.5ish pips. (Not accurate data, just using this to illustrate.)

I'd take an increase in sword damage, even if it is just a backup weapon, over a bit more shadow defense. A nice shadow shield would be more useful, I think.

I can't imagine... CTR Very Highs on all your bombs is going to be quite expensive.

As for freeze/poison... you might get the status for an extra second in Snarby vs Skelly. I'll point you to ye ol' FoV resistance tests:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/10522#comment-95704

so I don't think you should be so concerned about increasing sword damage or defense but focus on bomb efficiency. Most of the top bombers I've seen in other threads are rolling with one Bomber line or another, so maybe you should do the same.

Your avatar agrees with that.

Have you considered Deadshot set? At least it has some random undead bonus. Better than nothing :/

eh just focus on what you mainly do. As a bomber, get damage + CTR as many as possible. I am not sure about walking speed though. When you pick gears at first, try to ignore your uv goals that you could sustain yourself on clockwork without losing effectivity. Then, just consider uv as luxury or one of the ways for making profit (selling them when you don't need that particular uv).
I have gunner and sword setup but they only have one set of armor + helmet because I am too lazy and I rather have new weapons instead of new armor. So far, I am doing fine on any clockworks, even I have time to always revive my friends without matching defense. (I use skolver set on roarmulus, dark cities)

uh... I need to fix a part of my sentences. However, shield with matching defense is significantly important.
I use crest of almire for shadow, grey owlite for elemental, and barbarous thorn shield for piercing.

On ideal situation, you shouldn't taking any damage at all, therefore just focus your effectivity to kill monsters fast.
I know you will get damage one or two, but when you play long enough, you should be pro at dodging + shielding any types of monsters that those matching defense reduction are not going to help you a big one. Unless you have bad connection, which is unavoidable.

Shivermist... let's just assume it as a guide wheel, you need them at beginning. But as you can play through those clockworks, it's not needed. You can focus on more damage related bombs. Based on my experience, fire + shock bomb combination are just fast monsters/mobs killer (without those resistance). My friend also claimed poison bomb + any other bombs are killer for any mobs with healer. Shock bomb may be good enough for those dashing kats.

Freeze is useless.

But yes, if you're not going to just use bomber gear, I'd suggest Skelly over Snarby, reason being that is much cheaper to get good UVs on it. Fire High on a Wolver is what, 4k CE? Whereas it goes for under 2k CE on a Skelly.

Also, don't use heart pendants in the clockworks.

I agree with Bopp.

The freeze resist can cut your freeze time in half. That makes the difference between being permanently stuck in place and being able to run away before you are completely surrounded and pummeled and re-frozen.

@topic

if you are going to spend so much money on CTR VH UVs, why not just get a bomber set with each piece having UV Shadow Max! It'll probably cost you a lot less since you'll only need 2 max UVs instead of one for each bomb you own. So, if you want fire and Shadow just get Shadow Max! on Volcanic Demo suit and then add 2 Elite Bomb Damage trinkets. That'll give you CTR Max and Dmg Very High on every bomb, a lot of shadow, fire, elemental and normal protection. Good for FSC, Shadow Snarby (although poison resist would be nice), Shadow Twins, Shadow Vana, and fiends/undead in general.

Okay, Freeze isn't useless. :P

Well Valkyrie can really help you against those fiends, which might be most of the reason for you going for shadow defense. But then again you get negative fire and.... maybe positive curse, can't remember.

I guess to me it looks like skelly is the best defensive option and Valkyrie is the best offensive option. Snarbolax is, yes, just a weaker Skelly for a bomber unless you use a sword with your bombs and often.

Honestly, I think devs need to make Bombastic give shadow defense instead of elemental.

Shivermist Buster is of course the popular bomb for fighting Vanaduke. Having it makes you much more valuable to a typical FSC party (although there are some parties who don't do the freeze/blitz tactic).

In all other situations, I would recommend shock over freeze. Freeze hinders knockback and kiting. So does shock, but less so, and shock can do some big damage, especially if the monsters are tightly packed.