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Shard Bomb Mechanics

Charge

The shard bombs share charge times with the Blast Bomb series.

* Time in milliseconds

Fuse & Explosion

Inner and outer radius

The shard bombs have a two-stage explosion, both of which have knock back. The displayed radius on the fuse is that of the first explosion. The initial fuse is 1.8 seconds long and when it goes off it sends out 8 additional shards at 45 degree angles. These shards have a fuse of 2.5 seconds.

The first explosion behaves similarly to blast bomb, dealing damage to any unit inside of its radius and knocking the unit back. Most enemies will be knocked back as far as the outer-ring of shards, setting them up for a combo attack assuming they don't move.

Note: The delay allows enemies to get knocked back towards the center of the explosion if they continue to move towards the player standing where the bomb was dropped.

Time plot of 5 bomb drops for 4/5* shard bombs and nitronome from player with maximum charge time reduction. Video of side-by-side two bomb drop.

Latency

It takes 5.7 seconds from charge to explosion for a player with maximum charge time reduction. Because the charge time is only 1.225 seconds, a player "spamming" the bomb as fast as possible will be charging their fourth bomb by the time the main payload of the first bomb goes off. When holding a fully charged bomb, the player must anticipate where an enemy will be 4.3 seconds from the bomb drop to hit it with the main payload of the shard bombs. The inner fuse is 0.1 seconds shorter than the Nitronome but the double fuse is 115% longer.

Snipe Fun Fact: In the time it takes to drop a shard bomb and have the outer-ring explode, a player with maximum charge time reduction can charge and drop 3 nitronomes, 2 of which will deal damage before the shard bomb's outer explosion goes off.

Status Bombs

Shocking Salt Bomb and Scintillating Sun Shards paths both have a fair chance of causing moderate shock and stun, respectively, at the cost of dealing 10.5% less damage per shard. The initial explosion deals damage equivalent to each bomb's non-status dealing counterpart.

Status is application is similar to bombs such as the firecracker where enemies hit by the explosion have a chance to proc status. This only applies to the initial explosion, not subsequent shard charges.

Usage

Combo

Bomb placement and corresponding shard overlap

Because of the long double-fuse, pre-bomb placement is very tricky. One strategy that works is to knock back enemies with the first explosion which takes the guesswork out of aiming the secondary ring, however, enemies will move in or out of the second ring and can either get knocked back in unintended directions or sneak into the dead-zone of the bomb. This strategy only works against small numbers of enemies because of the smaller initial radius.

Spamming

For larger groups of enemies, placing as many bombs as possible seems to work the best. The optimal placement for shard bombs is to have the rings overlap. A good rule of thumb is to place the second bomb one "square unit" away from the outer radius of the fuse indicator. This will overlap the 8 shards in a way that minimizes any dead zones. One of the biggest issues of spamming the shard bomb is that both the initial and secondary explosions knock enemies back and when dropping shard bombs as quickly as possible, explosions from 3 bombs back will be going off which can be difficult to anticipate.

Videos

• Jelly Farm
• Lumbers, Retrodes, Scuttelbots
• D14 RJP Slimes vs Dark Retribution, Big Angry Bomb, Nitronome, Shocking Salt Bomb
• Gremlin Deconstruction Zones
• Jelly King

Bugs, Quirks and Criticism

Zero Damage Bombs

Sometimes the shard bombs do no damage at all.

• Invincible Gremlin Mender
• Tank Slag

Bombing Over Gaps/Short Walls

You can't.

Disappearing Shards

They disappear when hitting obstacles all the time.

Double hits only dealing single shard damage

Comparison of Nitronome and 4/5* shard bomb radii as well as visual representation of "dead zone" between inner and outer explosions

Bombing Corners

Very tricky.

Large Deadzone

One of the issues of the two-stage bomb is that by the time the outer-ring explosion goes off, there is a large hole in the center where enemies can move to and take zero damage. This dead zone is approximately 48% of the total area inside the full radius of the bomb. For stationary targets, there is a zone between the inner and outer explosions where enemies will take no damage at all. This applies to both the 4* and 5* versions of shard bombs.

No Mechanical Change from 4 to 5-star

4* vs 5* - Can you spot the difference? (view full size to see animation)

Aside from small cosmetic changes with bomb models, the 4 and 5-star versions of shard bombs all behave identically and differ only in damage. Other bombs receive other benefits such as increased radii to differentiate from 4 and 5 star variants but this mechanical difference is absent in shard bombs. Increasing the inside radius as well as the radius of each shard explosion would decrease the dead zone on 5-star shard bombs while allowing for more frequent double shard hits as well as reducing the amount of misses per bomb.

Low Base Damage