| “ | When one grenade just won't cut it. This thing is basically Armageddon in the palm of your hand. |
| — Item Description |
About
The Cluster Grenade is an unlockable Throwable for the Gunner. It is a handheld explosive with multiple payloads connected to one large stick. It seems similar to bundled versions of the real-life German Stielhandgranate (stick hand grenade), otherwise known as the "potato-masher" grenade, used in the World Wars.
The Cluster Grenade does not produce an explosion upon landing. It will instead eject its nine miniature payloads after a brief delay upon impact with the world. These "bomblets" will eject in random directions (though the distance they travel remains roughly the same) and will immediately explode on impact. Despite their small size, an individual bomblet has a fairly large explosion radius of almost four meters. Individually their damage is low, but the combined damage of all these bombs stacks up to 360 damage, which is quite high indeed.
While it's unlikely that any one enemy will take damage from all the bomblets at once, it is worth appreciating the Cluster's saturation abilities; the effective damage radius of all nine bomblets combined is immense - even if they don't kill whatever they hit, they have a good chance of stunning their target for a lengthy period of time. As a result, this grenade works best against large groups which may not be perfectly clustered; the random spread of the bomblets helps more than it hurts, easily blowing up crowds of grounded enemies like Glyphids.
It should be noted however, that the large radius of each bomblet means that it's very easy to catch teammates in the crossfire. The Cluster's immense range and unpredictable bomblet spread means that special care must be taken to ensure no teammates are present when throwing it, as it can easily deal lots of damage to your allies. This grenade is also less effective against bigger targets such as Praetorians, who can stand up to individual bomblet damage easily with their armor (though they may be stunned if they catch more than a couple of the bomblets). The Gunner's Sticky Grenade is better suited to handling individual targets
with its Fear Factor and high damage.
 Unlocked through a level cap.
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| Requires Gunner 10
Purchased for: |
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Cluster Grenade Demonstration
Usage
- Great at weakening the light armor on enemies like Glyphid Grunts, and the high Stun chance means they can easily be finished off.
- Do not use this grenade at close range; you can very easily catch yourself in the Cluster's bomblet spread and take massive damage in the process.
- Has particularly destructive effects when used in tight corridors, where the bomblets will instantly explode when colliding with the walls of a tunnel. The resulting damage is extremely high when concentrated on individuals.
- Not very effective against flying enemies such as Mactera, who will often dodge the bomblet spread with ease.
Trivia
- A much more extreme version of this grenade was shown off on the game's official Twitter back in early April, following up to the release of the Explosive Expansion update.
- The tiny "bomblets" are affected by the "Low Gravity" anomaly and will spread further.
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