Mutalist Cernos damage calculation error

[(XBOX)ScarecrowES]

I've posted a topic about this in the past, but was never able to find an answer.  In the past, the Mutalist Cernos was one of my favorite weapons, and was one of the first that I had received a good riven for.  However, at some point it fell by the wayside in favor of other weapons.  After the status system changes, I went to pick up the weapon again, as I was reviewing all of my best weapons, and noticed the damage numbers were much lower than they had been.  I had initially thought this was the result of changes to how damage related to multishot was displayed but after significant testing I can tell this is not the case.

Once upon a time, I'd be listed at around 24,000 damage per shot.  Now, damage had dropped to less than 4,000 per shot.  The riven I am am using adds pure damage (170.6%), heat (95.2%), and electricity (83.4%).  In testing, I'm finding out that damage is significantly different depending on where the mods are arranged, and it's obvious there's a major error in how the damage is being calculated.

Stripping off all elemental damage, this is what I'm seeing:

The weapon has base toxin damage.  If I add another base element of any type, it will result in a combination damage type with the toxin, as well as a solo damage amount of the type I added.  The combination damage will % scale based on the initial amount of toxin damage (low), but the solo type will scale based on the main weapon damage type... so for instance, adding a 90% electrical increases toxin 18.5 to corrosive 35.2 (18.5 X 1.9) , and adds electrical 1,365.3.  Adding a 90% toxin merely increases toxin to 35.2 and adds no additional damage (18.5 X 1.9).

Adding a separate dual element (two 90% mods)  leaves toxin at 18.5 but only adds the dual element at 33.3 (18.5 X 1.8).  This means I'm getting less of a damage increase by adding 2 90% dual stat mods than a single dual stat mod.

So what seems to be happening is that the weapon can't make it's mind up about how it calculates added elemental damage.  Sometimes it calculates damage based on the inherit toxin damage of the weapon, and sometimes it calculates damage based on the base damage of the weapon.

Can anyone else confirm if they're experiencing the same glitch?  I have no other weapons with inherit damage that calculates this way, and I am hoping to find out if it's just my particular weapon or if it is a problem with the Mutalist Cernos overall.

[Celosi]

I'm familiar with the bug and was always under the assumption it was UI only.  Have you tested the damage to see if what is displayed matches output?

[Acersecomic]

I just want its clouds to not suck @$$ :(
I have an excellent riven for it and it does great when hitting a target but the clouds... they're just utterly useless on higher levels, talking about 100+

[(XBOX)ScarecrowES]

23 minutes ago, Celosi said:

I'm familiar with the bug and was always under the assumption it was UI only.  Have you tested the damage to see if what is displayed matches output?

Hard to tell.  I've been experimenting in the simulacrum and there does seem to be a discrepancy between what the raw numbers show in the UI and what damage is actually being output on target, but a lot of that depends on damage resistances of the target and so on.  I've been trying to find combinations of damage and enemy types that allow every scenario to be tested without resistances coming into play.

For instance, I'll use an infested charger, and avoid any elemental combinations that they are either strong or weak to... so I'll thrown on blast, corrosive, and electricity, etc.  In this case, electricity, being a solo element, will boost damage about 1,365.3 of 4,589.1 total.  It will hit for about 7,200 on a level 95 charger.  This would likely reflect if both of the combo elements were also hitting around 1,300 each, rather than the 35 or so they're showing in the UI.

However, if I use my Riven build that displays 2 element combos at 50-80 damage and a solo element at 4,322.3, with a total damage of 9,060.8, the actual damage per hit is about 11,000.  UI damage is much closer to the actual.  If I rearrange where the riven sits, greatly changing the displayed damage values in the UI, it also greatly changes the actual damage results against the enemy.  Some of this is likely due to changing damage resistance values, as damage types do get changed around a bit when mods are moved around, but I can produce results as far apart as, for instance, UI damage around 5,000 but actual hits at 13,000 or 7000 depending on how the UI is showing damage.

So part of it definitely seems to be the UI.  The numbers just don't get added right.  But there also seems to be an issue of the calculations not going right.  It should also be noted that I can't seem to get the solo damage types that are produced in certain element combos to proc in the cloud the arrows leave behind.  For instance, if by element types produce a combo of blast, corrosive, and electricity, then the clouds will proc toxin, blast, and corrosive.  Or if cold is the solo element type, it will not proc by the cloud, but will work on initial hit.

[(XBOX)ScarecrowES]

8 minutes ago, Acersecomic said:

I just want its clouds to not suck @$$ :(
I have an excellent riven for it and it does great when hitting a target but the clouds... they're just utterly useless on higher levels, talking about 100+

The clouds are great for proc'ing useful status types that lower armor or do DOT against health in general... like corrosive, heat, viral, etc.  It's also good for stacking status procs for melees using condition overload.  Or just general CC.

I'm not so much worried about doing a lot of damage with the clouds so much... it's that my main shots aren't as powerful as they should be.

[Proscriptor]

On 2020-10-17 at 9:45 PM, (XB1)ScarecrowES said:

...

 

please check out my explanation of the mutalist cernos UI bug from a previous thread about the same issue

- - -  

On 2020-10-17 at 10:49 PM, Acersecomic said:

I just want its clouds to not suck @$$ :(
I have an excellent riven for it and it does great when hitting a target but the clouds... they're just utterly useless on higher levels, talking about 100+

what's your riven?

[Acersecomic]

 

22 minutes ago, Traubenzuckr said:

- - -  

what's your riven?

97% Heat, 90% MS, 94% Toxin, in that order.

Build is in order, Serration, Malignant Force, High Voltage, Themite Rounds, Point Strike, Split Flights, Vigilante Armaments, Riven.

I noticed that it gets enough crits to make it worth using Point Strike and Vigilante is there just for more arrows all the time because I just love the trailing effect to death.
It works best when built for Corrosive but the AoE clouds are like... 20-90 damage per tick... That's the disappointing part :(

[Proscriptor]

mutalist cernos only shines with a hunter munitions build, so your riven is bad as it doesn't improve this build in any way

none of the stats are useful 

for example, combining split flights with +ms on riven leads to severe diminishing returns, so only split flights is used for multishot

for this reason, the stat needed for mutalist cernos to be really good is damage, not multishot (and not both damage and multishot, just damage)

then, for clouds to "not suck @$$", the clouds must do viral; that's the only way for them not to suck

toxin on riven doesn't make them do viral any more than they do without it because the clouds are already toxin

so the only element you'd really be looking for is cold, to make viral... and not heat

etc.

[(XBOX)ScarecrowES]

1 hour ago, Traubenzuckr said:

 

please check out my explanation of the mutalist cernos UI bug from a previous thread about the same issue

Very good response there.  Very helpful.  Prompted by that explanation, I decided to see if Overframe's builder shows the damage breakdown better, and it does.

The question them becomes, how should I prioritize my elemental damage?  My riven is 95% heat, 170% damage, 84% electricity, in that order.  So if left largely alone, in most element mod combination it will default to radiation, which was nice when radiation worked.  I also prefer to have primed cryo in the mix, and had historically run a radiation/viral build on this weapon.

I could also easily get a corrosive/blast combo going - and something like a radiation/electricity or radiation/cold on the main shot with radiation/viral on the clouds.  Or heat/magnetic on the main with magnetic/gas on the cloud.  Or gas/magnetic on both.

[Proscriptor]

if you slot radiation and cold, how are you benefiting from the status potential of this weapon? @(XB1)ScarecrowES

[(XBOX)ScarecrowES]

51 minutes ago, Traubenzuckr said:

if you slot radiation and cold, how are you benefiting from the status potential of this weapon? @(XB1)ScarecrowES

As I said, It's just one of many options I have for how to build out the elemental types of the weapon based on the riven that I have.

So far I've put back the old radiation/viral build, and put a blast/corrosive build on the second slot.  Third slot is for experimentation.  The blast/corrosive build seems to work pretty well on Deimos, where viral is basically useless.  The Deimos armor types are weak to both, it seems.

[Proscriptor]

why don't you answer how you are benefiting from the status potential of m. cernos by slotting radiation and cold? if you answer that i can give some more guidance about your riven and builds

[Celosi]

Radiation can be used for some very good crowd control as the clouds will continuously proc radiation.  I've used it in the past; it was my go to on Saryn a long time ago for this reason. Before she was reworked.

Split Flights, Hunters Munitions, and CC is what got me through all of Steel Path, cheesed with Loki. 

 

[Acersecomic]

15 hours ago, Traubenzuckr said:

mutalist cernos only shines with a hunter munitions build, so your riven is bad as it doesn't improve this build in any way

none of the stats are useful 

for example, combining split flights with +ms on riven leads to severe diminishing returns, so only split flights is used for multishot

for this reason, the stat needed for mutalist cernos to be really good is damage, not multishot (and not both damage and multishot, just damage)

then, for clouds to "not suck @$$", the clouds must do viral; that's the only way for them not to suck

toxin on riven doesn't make them do viral any more than they do without it because the clouds are already toxin

so the only element you'd really be looking for is cold, to make viral... and not heat

etc.

Hunter Munitions and Viral are two biggest youtuber nonsenses I have ever seen in the game.

Always, ALWAYS! I have found higher damage numbers and faster kill times from pure Corrosive. Even after elemental rework Corrosive still is 100% more effective at killing relevant targets than the ridiculous notion of Viral and Hunter Munitions. I have even tried hybrid viral/corrosive and viral/corrosive/hunter munitions and it still worked less efficiently than pure Corrosive. Even Heat/Corrosive works less efficiently than pure Corrosive.

So what you are telling me to do, results ALWAYS in slower kill times. ALWAYS.

[Proscriptor]

you don't see large damage numbers on direct hits with hm-viral because it's a proc based build type

you're supposed to see either large or not so large but frequent DoT numbers

you can't tell which is better through mere observation, measurement of time to kill is needed

there are programs that can simulate these scenarios and give you a precise answer

I don't watch the youtubers, i've noticed their videos are a bit stupid. it doesn't matter what they produce. the evidence is found elsewhere

on some levels with some weapons corrosive is indeed better, and I like corrosive in general

the thing with mutalist cernos is that it isn't really a competitive bow with corrosive. the clouds don't matter much in that scenario, so with corrosive you're neglecting the distinguishing perk of the weapon

[Acersecomic]

36 minutes ago, Traubenzuckr said:

you don't see large damage numbers on direct hits with hm-viral because it's a proc based build type

you're supposed to see either large or not so large but frequent DoT numbers

you can't tell which is better through mere observation, measurement of time to kill is needed

there are programs that can simulate these scenarios and give you a precise answer

I don't watch the youtubers, i've noticed their videos are a bit stupid. it doesn't matter what they produce. the evidence is found elsewhere

on some levels with some weapons corrosive is indeed better, and I like corrosive in general

the thing with mutalist cernos is that it isn't really a competitive bow with corrosive. the clouds don't matter much in that scenario, so with corrosive you're neglecting the distinguishing perk of the weapon

So why do I still kill faster with Corrosive on relevant targets? Why is viral trailing behind at suicidal levels of ineffective?

[Proscriptor]

i don't know, i can only guess