Elemental damage

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

Elements
Elemental damage comes in four different elements:


 * Incendiary: Incendiary is a relatively weak element at first, but has the benefit of being able to set enemies on fire, for substantial damage over time. This works great against all "fleshy" opponents, which is close to 90% of all enemies in the game.
 * Corrosive: Corrosive is much like incendiary: weak at first, but has substantial damage over time. Each corrosive attack that an enemy is subjected to will cause them to take more damage from subsequent attacks. Corrosive damage is best used against armored enemies. Note that an armored enemy is not necessarily an enemy with a shield. It is an enemy such as an Alpha Skag which has thick armored plates on the front. Corrosive damage is optimal against all sorts of Crimson Lance (excluding Lance Chemical Troopers). It is also effective on flesh, but not quite as much as Incendiary.Corrosive damage also stays with an enemy longer than fire or shock. It can also spread between several enemies.
 * Shock: Shock will discharge an enemy's shield much more quickly than a normal bullet. Once the shield is down, the shock damage will also electrocute an enemy to deal damage over time. This effect has a chance to stun the enemy. 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: Explosive damage is excellent for dealing high amounts of damage immediately and to adjacent targets. It is the only element type that will not deal damage over time, and will not deal as much damage as a fire weapon of the same level, but sacrifices that power to do all of its damage immediately.

Damage over time effect
Incendiary, shock and corrosive weapons have a chance to trigger a damage over time effect. This means the enemy will be set on fire, electrified, or corroded by acid, rapidly losing life after being hit by an elemental weapon. This effect can stack (an enemy can be set on fire "twice" for added damage), and will stack concurrently with damage over time from other element types.

Damage over time from fire and corrosive damage forms have an area of effect, and enemies that are too close to each other can pass on the effect. Occasionally, enemies close to each other may set each other on fire in a back and forth motion, each time increasing their "flaming intensity", until they die in an inferno of flames.

The damage over time effect for shock damage will not transmit from enemy to enemy. When a shock bullet hits something, it will explode in a ball of sparks for several seconds, damaging anything caught in the blast.

Finally, explosive damage has no damage over time whatsoever. However, it damages a large area due to the explosive splash damage, and has a much higher initial damage.

An added benefit of this Damage Over Time effect is that it is also an area effect, that might hit critical parts of the enemy. For example, setting a Larva Crab Worm on fire will usually also burn their eye, instantly killing them, even though you were firing at the body.

It is unknown how the mechanics of this damage over time works, but it is generally believed it is a direct correlation between the quality of the effect (how much the enemy is on fire) and the enemy's total health. citation needed

Triggering elemental effects
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 x2 to x4 usually. An elemental weapon that is xN can only proc up to xN. The exception is x1 elemental weapon, that proc for x2. Certain legendary weapons can proc as high as x6.

The rule of thumb is that when a weapons procs for xN, it adds that much elemental damage to a character's attack. So if a 100 damage gun fires a x3 proc, the target hit will be damaged for 100+300 damage.

As you can see, incendiary and corrosive have a low multiplier to account for the added Damage Over Time, and explosive has a high multiplier, to account for the fact that it is supposed to be a sheer damage multiplier.

Tech Pool
Every gun has a "Tech Pool". This tech pool constantly recharges when it is not full. Every time a weapon procs, it consumes some of the tech inside this pool, with bigger procs consuming larger amounts of tech. Once the pool is empty, the weapon cannot proc until this pool has recharged some.

The size of Tech Pool depends on two things, the overall quality of the weapon, which will give it a Tech Level, and the elemental multiplier. In the end, the size of the Tech Pool is equal to the Tech Level times the weapon's elemental multiplier.

Note that higher elemental multipliers don't actually give you better chances to proc. However, since you start with a bigger pool, you will proc more before running out of tech.

The speed at which this pool refills is mostly the same for all weapons, but mods, some of Lilith's skills, and the poorly worded "high elemental effect chance" increase this rate of regeneration.

The overall conclusion of this paragraph is that every weapon has a very high chance to proc when you open fire, but will then quickly stop after a little while. This makes low fire rate weapons (handguns, sniper riffles, rocket launchers) better at elemental attacks than fast fire rate weapons (Rifles, SMGs).

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

As you can see, a flame proc will deal 120% damage to flesh, but only 50% damage to shields. Note that this formula only applies on the added elemental damage, and has no effect on the actual bullet.

Matching Elements to Enemies
Skags - Because Skags are fleshy and naturally armored, it is best to use flame or corrosive damage.

Spiderants - Corrosive damage will degrade their armor from the front, but it's more effective to use a fire or explosive attacks to gain critical hits on their abdomen.

Scythids - Most susceptible to incendiary attacks.

Bandits - If the enemy has a shield, a shock weapon can quickly deplete its charge. Once the shield is gone, an incendiary weapon is the most effective elemental damage.

Guardians - All Guardians have very large shields and very low health, and are thus extremely vulnerable to shock weapons.

Crimson Lance - These enemies are most vulnerable to corrosive damage due to their heavy armor.

Zombies - Incendiary damage is most effective. Zombies are immune to corrosive damage.

Weapons
Different weapons react differently to Elemental effects. It is important to understand how they work, to choose a good elemental weapon. Elemental weapons are not as strong as regular weapons. But, it ultimately depends up the strategy used with the E-Weapon.


 * Sniper Rifle: Because of their low rate of fire, sniper rifles have enough time to charge their tech pool between each shot, giving them very high chance to Proc every shot.


 * Revolver: Revolvers will generally have a x2 multiplier. for x2. Because of this, a revolver with x1 elemental will approximately double it's damage output. However, a x4 revolver will not gain that much more. It is recommended to use an Elemental Revolver over a non-elemental revolver if the Elemental effect is favored over the non-elemental's greater damage. It ultimately depends upon personal strategy and/or playstyle.


 * Shotgun: The damage is determined every shot and not for each individual pellet. Shotguns may often be found at a x1 multiplier. Although it is low, its damage can considerably be as high or near as a regular Shotgun's.


 * SMG/Repeater Pistol: These weapons have a better chance of having a x2 - x4 multiplier than other weapons. They consume less Tech per proc, allowing them to proc more often.


 * Combat Rifle: These weapons usually proc on their first shots, but quickly run out of tech, due to their higher and sustained rate of fire. Elemental rifles are hard to find, but efficient when used on a Burst-Shot Rifle. (Battle Rifle versions)


 * Rocket Launcher: Rockets launchers will *ALWAYS* have a x4 multiplier.

Advisory Summary
Elemental effects on weapons like Combat Rifles and Shotguns tend to be of relatively low benefit. Repeaters, and SMGs can gain advantages from elemental damage and fall into the middle ground of effectiveness with their high fire rates increasing the number of proc chances. Sniper Rifles usually gain great damage benefits from Elemental damage. Revolvers and Rocket Launchers gain the most from elemental damage.

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


 * Blue - Lightning
 * Green - Corrosive
 * Red - Incendiary
 * Yellow - Explosive

When struck, or otherwise damaged, 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 apply the one blast.