Spiral Knights - Suggestion for new shard bombs

Suggestion for new shard bombs

12 replies [Last post]

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 08:40

Trollingyou

The new shard bombs are quite fun to use. However, in my opinion, they need some tweaking to truly shine. I suggest one of two these changes to help the bomb hit things more reliably (Bear in mind this was tested with RSS which was still 4 star, so suggestion 2 might be moot):

1. Fuse time of small shards is a bit long, make it shorter

Don't get me wrong, the fuse time of the bomb itself is fine, but the smaller shards take quite long to go off. I noticed this problem can be alleviated with VH-Max CTR, but it is still an issue. The CTR should not make up for a weakness, but rather make it better, if you get what I am saying. My suggestion is to either lower the time it takes for the small shard to go off by about 30 percent, or have CTR bonuses affect the fuse time of the small shards.

2. Explosion range of small shards is rather small, make it bigger

The small shards do low damage as it is already and their explosion range does not help that at all. If the range were to be increased, it would make it easier to hit with multiple explosions, even if its only with two, which would help the bomb's DPS. It seemed to work better on big targets than it did on small targets damage wise, which is why I suggest this.

The new bombs have potential. Also, I did not craft it to 5 star because I felt it was not worth it in their current state.

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 09:01

Pokenuevo

A very viable suggestion, and after seeing the new bombs in action, this could help tweak it in the right direction.

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 11:22

Zeddy

Okay so

Alright, let's use this thread to gather ways in which we can salvage the new bombs. In order of priority:

Most importantly: Stun has to go from Sun Shards until such a time when Stun is no longer broken. Are you aware that Stun is broken, OOO? We've been trying to tell you.

Pretty importantly: Disappearing shards is cumbersome. The fact that they disappear around Trojans, one of the enemies Sun Shards are supposed to be specialized against, is laughable. It's like if you made an anti-gremlin bomb that did low damage over time and had a tiny area of effect that gremlins easily avoid and which far more often than not hit gremlins shields. Oh. You did that, huh? And then you put in the description that it was made specifically for killing gremlins?

Of merit if you want this bomb to go past "usable" and into "actually effective": Shard blast radius needs to go up so that multi-hitting is frequent. When a lumber can stand right a shard ring and only take one hit I call shenanigans.

Would be nice: Get rid of shard knockback.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 07:23

Deltikon

A few ideas...

Here's a few things that could be done to improve the updated bombs:

>Reduce the time that takes the 2nd blast to explode, or better yet, make them explode as soon as a opponent touches them.
>Don't make the shards disappear on the direction they are supposed to show up just because the bomb is too close to a wall.
>Making the blast radius slightly bigger also helps, although I'm basing this though on a 4* bomb..

And one last thing, make the sun shards and the salt bomb sub-lines deal elemental damage too, since it makes more sense than just dealing pure special damage (and no, it will keep the same effectiveness on the targets that the bombs are specified for (fiends/slimes)). Not necessairly an improvement, but it doesn't make sense that the kitchen salt bomb is just dark and edgy.

And I think that's it. Would you think it's good enough to make them reliable again?

EDIT: Also remove the knock-back on the 2nd explosion. I don't need enemies to go back and forth to make me confused on where to go to save my butt, and neither does any other bomber.

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 15:15

Little-Juances

Split damage was bad (old antiguas) but for some reason it worked on the old RSS. I'm not sure we can pull that again.

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 15:31

Deltikon

How was it exactly bad?

I mean, if the antiguas kept their old damage they could be used against one other enemy family, (fiends for the AP and beasts for Sent., although I do admit it's a bit harder to hit those comparing to slime/construct, but I would guess the damage is about the same (just speculating)).

And the old bombs did worked well because, as one of the reasons, a well placed bomb in front of a swiping skellington would be pretty much a certain 2nd death for the careless idiot, since almost all shards hit him. And the elemental damage did helped to vaporize it even faster.

Thu, 08/09/2012 - 19:54

Trollingyou

Responses

@Pokenuevo

Thanks for your support. The new bombs are fun to use even when underpowered.

@Zeddy

I agree with everything you said. I do consider stun more of a global thing rather than specific to this weapon but it does hurt it. Increasing the shard blast radius was my second suggestion, it is too small. Getting rid of shard knockback would also help constant hitting, as it is supposed to be a DPS bomb.

@Deltikon

I agree with everything you said (and suggested the first two lol) except making them split damage. Reason why is below in block of text.

@Little-Juances

The split damage was bad because monster resistance is stronger than their weakness. For instance, lets say we had a weapon that dealt split pierce/elemental damage that did a total of 100 (50 for each attribute). If you shot a lumber with it, he would take bonus damage from the elemental portion, say a 50 percent bonus to make it 75 elemental damage, but he would resist the pierce, say a 75 percent resist, only taking about 13 (rounded from 12.5) damage from the pierce side. This totals to 88 damage. Notice how it was lower than the weapons base damage. It would have been better if the weapon dealt normal damage, because it would hit the full 100. Even if the weapon did not face resistance, only half of the damage would benefit, because the monster was weak to only half of your damage, and neutral to the other half. (Keep in mind these are not exact numbers for the game, just there to show an example).

The same thing was happening to the RSS, just it was not as noticeable because the weapon had a high base damage and multi hitting capabilities, versus the AP/sentenza's very low base damage with multi hitting capabilities. They did not change the base damage of the AP/Sentenza, yet they started dealing a lot more damage.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 07:10

Deltikon

Ooh, I see...

But if the damage was the main problem of the guns, all they had to do was to buff it. There was no real need to remove the piercing damage at all. Same with the two old shard bombs, the salt bomb line just need a different damage type other than piercing to be effective against the slimes.

And it's not only because the RSS packed a big punch for a bomb it was effective. Undead are weak to elemental and neutral to piercing, so they would take as much damage as fiends do. And since the zombies' swipes make them go a step further, planting a bomb right in front of them would be a certain 2nd death for them, as I said before. And yeah, a single shard could hit 2-3 slags at the same time, making the bomb an awesome weapon.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 07:48

Serell

....

When playing with the bombs, they almost felt like mines. The problem was, everybody was walking all over it before it exploded. Either make the bomb faster, having both explosion go off within a second, or keep the time, but have the shards instantly explode when walked on by an enemy.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 08:22

Aumir

Chilled, posting in this topic

Well, even if I am against the bombs, if they aren't to come back, at least improve them.

These bombs, as you all said, need some improvements, and what I agree with:
- Shards explode on contact: If they are to keep the slow remote burst time, this is needed.
- Bigger explosions: Not by much, but so they don't leave blind spots and make it possible to hit with 2-3 shards at the same time, if they aren't going to improve the damage.
- Shorter fuse: Shard bombs were our answer to Grievers. Even if they are Piercing, current slow burst and no contact reaction makes them impossible for them to be used against them.

What I would like:
- Faster charge: This way we could set up "minefields", as currently we can only put 2 at once with Max CTR. Which gives a +1 to OP right away.
OR
- A 2nd ring of explosions for both 4* and 5* versions, as there is no sense at all of improvement right now. Even if this 2nd ring has smaller explosions.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 09:59

#10

Canine-Vladmir

I would like it...

if when the second explosion happened. let there ALSO be one shard in the middle. Rwally annoying seeing one can just walk in the middle and not get harmed.

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 13:03

#11

Diamondshreddie

I totally agree.

the points you have listed above are 2 of the major points i notice making yhis bomb a little harder to use.

I also suggets that the secondary shards cause knockDOWN instead of knockBACK, or sometimes knockWHEREVER. lol

oyherwise, i love these bombs at the moment, and am almost done crafting my deadly shard bomb, thank you OOO :)

Fri, 08/10/2012 - 18:18

#12

Trollingyou

Moar Responses

@Deltikon

For some reason, they did not want to buff the guns damage. I don't know why sadly, though it would have worked. It's true that undead are weak to elemental, but if the bomb were pure elemental instead of split it would have went from murdering zombies to zombie homicide. The split was hindering the bomb's true potential against undead, although it was still super effective on them.

@Serell

This actually sounds like a good idea. Would make an awesome asset for Lockdown if this happened.

@Aumir

The bomb charges fast as it is, I don't think this needs to be changed. The second ring of shards, however, could help this bomb a ton when it comes to hitting things. Every other bomb hits everywhere within it's range so I don't see why the 2nd ring should have smaller explosions, especially since the explosions from the smaller shards is already small. I assume you mean for the second ring to land inside the current ring, though correct me if I'm wrong.

@Canine-Vladmir

I agree with you, it's very annoying when a mob just walks to the middle (while stunned no less) and avoids all the shards. It would make people think twice about rushing you in Lockdown too with the bomb out.

@Diamondshreddie (lol at knockWHEREVER)

Making the smaller shards cause knockdown does make sense, since it's not a big, angry explosion, but rather a shower of smaller explosions. After all, we don't want Nitronome 2.0 in this bomb, lol.

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Suggestion for new shard bombs