Elemental damage

This article is about the detailed mechanics behind elemental damage on weapons. A weapon with elemental damage has a chance to add extra damage of an elemental type to the target every time it fires. This effect does not change the base bullet damage of a weapon.

Elements
Elemental damage comes in five different varieties:
 * Incendiary: is a relatively weak element initially, but has the benefit of being able to set enemies on fire, for substantial damage over time. The initial burst can hit other enemies near the primary target, setting them on fire as well. This works great against all "fleshy" opponents, which are the majority of all enemies in the game, so long as those enemies are not heavily shielded. It is less effective against armored enemies, and quite ineffective against heavily shielded enemies.
 * Corrosive: is much like incendiary: weak initially, but has substantial damage over time and can hit nearby enemies in the initial burst. An enemy taking damage over time from corrosion will suffer bonus damage from any subsequent attacks. Corrosive damage is best used against armored enemies such as Crimson Lance mercenaries (but excluding Lance Chemical Troopers), the frontal plates of an Alpha Skag, or any vehicle or turret. It is less effective against flesh or any shielded enemy. Corrosive damage over time persists for longer than fire or shock. It can also spread between adjoining enemies.
 * Shock: will deplete an enemy's shield much more quickly than a normal bullet. Shock damage may also electrocute an enemy to deal damage over time. While it is extremely effective against shields it does slightly less damage to flesh. While loading screen tips state that this effect has a chance to stun the enemy, this effect is very brief. Shock effects tend to deal large amounts of damage in short amounts of time, where corrosive and incendiary damage is less powerful but sustains longer.
 * Explosive: damage is excellent for dealing high amounts of damage immediately to the target and nearby enemies. It is the only element type that will not deal damage over time, and will not deal as much damage as an Incendiary weapon of the same level, but sacrifices that power to do all of its damage immediately. Explosive damage has an immediate area of effect and explosions can hit multiple nearby enemies at once, albeit quickly in one relatively large portion of damage.
 * Slag: coats enemies in a substance that increases damage to them while it is active. Exclusive to Borderlands 2.

Elemental Prefixes
Note: on some weapons, elemental multiplier and prefix may not match due to different tech requirements for the prefixes and multipliers.

Damage over Time effects
Incendiary, Shock and Corrosive attacks have a chance to trigger a damage over time effect, inflicting further elemental damage over a period of time after the initial attack. Explosive attacks do not inflict damage over time, delivering all of their damage in the initial attack.

Area of Effect
All elemental weapons can do splash damage that affects any targets in that area. Largest possible area of effect size is directly proportional to elemental multiplier seen on weapon infocard. Each elemental multiplier has roughly 3 times larger area of effect than the previous one.

Triggering elemental effects or Proc
An elemental weapon actually usually shoots normal bullets, that are exactly the same as that of a normal gun. However, sometimes they trigger an elemental effect, or "proc" (short for "programmed random occurrence"). When this happens in addition to the bullet damage, the elemental effect and damage is added. These procs can trigger with varying intensities, from x1 to x4, as seen on weapon infocards. Different weapons have different proc chances for each of these elemental multipliers.

Tech Pool
Every gun has a Tech Pool. This pool constantly recharges when it is not full. Every proc has a specific tech pool cost, with bigger procs consuming larger amounts from the tech pool. Once the pool is empty, the weapon cannot proc until this pool has recharged a sufficient amount, unless the weapon has a proc that costs 0 tech pool.

The size of tech pool depends on the overall quality of the weapon, which will give it a tech level, and the elemental multiplier, which is based on tech level. The size of the tech pool is equal to the tech level times 4*. Lilith's Spark skill can provide a slight further bonus.


 * Tech Level not to be confused with Tech Tier or Tech Multiplier

The speed at which this pool refills is 4 points per second for all weapons, but mods and some of Lilith's skills can affect this rate of regeneration. Weapons do not regenerate tech pool when not being held.

Elemental Affinities
As stated in the beginning of this article, some elements are more effective than others on certain targets. This comes from a simple coefficient formula:

For example, an incendiary proc will deal 120% damage to flesh, but only 50% damage to shields.

Matching Elements to Enemies
Skags - Vulnerable to incendiary, with the heavily armored Alphas susceptible to corrosion. Spitter and Elder Skags are naturally resistant to corrosion, however.

Spiderants - Resistant to all elements. Corrosive damage will degrade their armor from the front, and smaller varieties will succumb to critical hits on their abdomen via explosive blast attacks.

Scythids - Resistant to all elements.

Bandits - If the enemy has a shield, a shock weapon can quickly deplete its charge. If an enemy is unshielded or once the shield is depleted, an incendiary weapon is the most effective elemental damage. Explosive works well either way.

Guardians - Vulnerable to shock, due to their very large shields and correspondingly low health.

Crimson Lance - Vulnerable to corrosive damage due to their heavy armor. Corrosion proceeds more efficiently once shields are down. Corrosion resistant varieties are susceptible to incineration or electrocution. Resistant to explosive blast.

Zombies - Vulnerable to explosive and incendiary damage. Zombies take no damage over time from corrosion. Beware that shock heals certain powerful varieties (Tankenstein/Loot Goon).

Claptraps - Vulnerable to due to their metallic construction. Many other mechanical re-creations fought during the Robolution, however, will preserve their original elemental weaknesses.

Extra Elemental Damage Effect
Whenever a weapon procs, a certain amount of elemental damage is added based on the current element's damage multiplier:

When calculating the damage an elemental weapon will do, one first takes the base damage of the weapon and multiplies it by the appropriate Element Damage Multiplier from the above table, and then multiplies the result by the appropriate Weapon Proc Multiplier from the tables below. That result is added on top of the weapon's base damage to get the total damage.

Essentially, [Total Damage] = [Weapon Base Damage] + ([WBD] * [EDM] * [WPM])

For example:
 * if a 100 damage repeater procs x1, this will add a 1x, dealing an extra 60 damage.
 * If a 100 damage sniper rifle procs x3, this will add a 1.5x  dealing an extra 225 damage.

Weapons
Different weapons react differently to Elemental effects. It is important to understand how they work, in order to choose a good elemental weapon, as Elemental weapons can be far less effective than normal weapons if used improperly.

''Please note that these stats are taken from normal accessories providing elemental damage. Legendary and Unique Elemental weapons may have different accessories, and usually more powerful elemental effects.''

Sniper Rifle
Notes: Sniper rifles will always proc at the highest level the tech pool permits. sniper rifles will always proc at least x1.

Revolver
Notes: x1 elemental revolver is almost equal to x2. Revolvers will always proc (at least) x1.

Shotgun
Notes: The damage is determined every shot and not for each individual pellet. All pellets will proc together. All procs have same damage multiplier and cost, but higher elemental multipliers will allow larger AoEs and proc more often.

SMG
Notes: All procs have same damage multiplier, higher elemental multiplier will allow larger AoEs and proc more often.

Repeater
Notes: Low tech pool costs ensure frequent procs. All procs have same damage multiplier, higher elemental multiplier will allow larger AoEs and proc more often. repeaters actually only have 5% chance to proc at level 4.

Combat Rifle
Notes: Combat rifles, especially support machine guns, often run out of tech pool due to high proc rates. combat rifles proc harder at x3 than other elements.

Rocket Launcher
Rocket Launchers are a special case. They will always have x4 elemental multiplier with 100% proc chance, 0 tech pool cost and damage multiplier of 1. Non-elemental Rocket Launchers deal Explosive damage.

Advisory Summary
Legendary and Unique elemental weapons shouldn't be judged with this data since they may have their own, more powerful elemental effects. Generally speaking, elemental effects are strongest on Sniper Rifles, Revolvers and Rocket Launchers. High elemental multiplier on a weapon's infocard only guarantees a high tech pool and larger area of effects. It doesn't necessarily mean higher damage or more procs.

Barrels
Brightly coloured barrels scattered around the landscape also apply elemental damage, each colour corresponding to a certain element type.


 * Blue -
 * Green -
 * Red -
 * Yellow -

When damaged (whether by flying bullets, nearby explosions, or Lilith's various destructive auras), the barrels will detonate to deal the elemental damage form associated with that colour. The blue, green and red barrels are capable of applying a damage-over-time elemental effect in addition to the initial damage from the blast. Explosive yellow barrels will simply deal a one-off blast damage.