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 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.
Corrosive: Corrosive has substantial damage over time and can hit nearby enemies in the initial burst. 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 parts of enemies. An armored enemy is an enemy such as an Alpha Skag which has thick armored plates on the front.
Shock: Shock will discharge an enemy's shield much more quickly than a normal bullet. Shock damage may also electrocute an enemy to deal damage over time. Loading screen tips state that this effect has a chance to stun the enemy, but this does not seem to be the case.
Explosive: 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.

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:

Elemental Effect Coefficients
	Flesh	Shield	Armor
Incendiary	1.2	0.5	0.8
Shock	0.9	1.5	0.9
Explosive	1.0	1.0	1.0
Corrosive	0.8	0.8	2.0

As you can see, incendiary will deal 120% damage to flesh, but only 50% damage to shields. This formula also applies when the elemental effect does not occur.

Matching Elements to Enemies

Skags - Because Skags are fleshy and naturally armored, it is best to use incendiary 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 abdomens.
Scythids - Most susceptible to incendiary attacks.
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.
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 (excluding Lance Chemical Troopers who should be burned). Lance Probes have huge shields and little life so shock is best for them.
Zombies - They are uniquely weak to Explosive damage. Incendiary damage is the second most effective. Zombies are immune to corrosive damage.
Claptraps - Made of metal therefore weak to corrosive. Many other mechanical recreations fought during the Claptrap's robolution however will have their original elemental weaknesses.

Damage over Time (DoT's)

Incendiary, Shock, and Corrosive weapons have a chance to cause an enemy to constantly lose 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. Shock effects tend to deal larger amounts of damage in short amounts of time, where corrosive and incendiary damage are less powerful but last much longer.

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 and the enemy's total health. ^{[citation needed]}

Area of Effect

Elemental weapons can do splash damage that effects any targets in that area. How much extra damage is done decides how far the effect spreads over an area. An added benefit of this area of effect is that it might hit critical parts of the enemy. For example, setting a Larva Crab Worm on fire will usually also burn their eye, causing a critical which instantly kills them, even though you were firing at the body.

Contagion

Just as CL4P-TP explains over the echo net on the player's Dahl VDU, some elemental damage (incendiary and corrosive) can spread to nearby enemies making the weapon more effective against groups and/or enemies in close quarters. 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.

Elemental Prefixes

Tier Four	Combustion	Fulgurating	Pestilent	Erupting	Tech >= 16 (4.3)
Tier Three	Burning	Lightning	Vitriolic	Detonating	Tech >= 12 (3.3)
Tier Two	Incendiary	Static	Caustic	Blast	Tech >= 6 (2.3)
Tier One	Flaming	Shock	Corrosive	Exploding	Tech >= 1 (1.3)

It is important to note that the tech cutoffs for the prefixes are different from the cutoffs for multipliers.

x4	Tech >= 15
x3	Tech >= 12
x2	Tech >= 9
x1	Tech >= 1

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 the overall quality of the weapon, which will give it a Tech Level. The size of the Tech Pool is equal to the Tech Level times four.

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. If insufficient Tech Pool exist when a proc should occur it will simply not occur.

The speed at which this pool refills is similar for all weapons, but mods, some of Lilith's skills, and the poorly worded "high elemental effect chance" increase this rate of regeneration. Weapons regenerate tech pool more slowly or not at all when not being held.

Every weapon has a very high chance to proc when you open fire, but that chance will diminish over time depending on the size of the Tech Pool and how quickly it is depleted.

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.

Revolver: It will proc at least x2 on every shot. Because of this, a revolver with x1 elemental will approximately double its damage output. However, a x4 revolver will not gain that much more. Generally, the Elemental revolver is significantly better.

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.

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

Combat Rifle: These weapons quickly run out of tech. Elemental rifles are efficient when used on a Burst-Shot Rifle (Battle Rifle versions). Non-elemental tend to be better for continuous firing.

Shotgun: When a proc occurs all pellets proc. Shotguns may often be found at a x1 multiplier. Its damage can be as high or near as a regular Shotgun's if matched to the elemental weakness of your target. Non-elemental tend to be better.

Rocket Launcher: Rockets launchers will *ALWAYS* have a x4 multiplier listed or none if its explosive. Every shot will deal the listed damage for its element without exception, higher numbers will never randomly occur. How close to the center of the explosion a target is will adjust the damage.

Here is a chart explaining possible damage occurences based on the Tech Level shown and how much of the tech pool each proc consumes!

Indicated Tech	x2 Proc	x3 Proc	x4 Proc	Proc Drain
Revolvers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Varies*
Snipers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Varies*
Repeaters	Yes	No	No	Tiny
SMGs	Yes	No	No	Medium
Combat Rifles	Yes	No	No	Medium
Shotguns	Yes	No	No	Medium
Launchers	No	No	No	None

x2 procs with revolvers consume no tech pool. Higher procs with revolvers and sniper rifles will drain more tech pool.

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" or "procedure"). 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 weapon 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.

Actual Damage Multipliers
	Incendiary	Shock	Corrosive	Explosive
x2	1.6	2	1.4	2.5
x3	2.4	3	2.1	3.75
x4	3.2	4	2.8	5

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.

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.

External Links

Elements, Multipliers, and YOU - Testing results and discussion regarding elemental damage