weird thoughts about status

[_Anise_]

I didn't fully realize that the elemental damage was independent of status, so you can build for elemental damage and not actually need any status ...

I was thinking heat status deals 50% base damage (weapon?) as heat over 6 seconds so a dot (I have no idea if this sticks instantly ?) it also does a CC and strips armor

so in a case where that enemy dies instantly to the initial hit the status is doing nothing right ?

same with radiation, if the enemy dies within seconds of getting hit the rad proc does nothing!

tldr: does it ever make sense to stack the bigger element mods that come without status to just melt enemies harder instantly than running lower stats +statis just for the procs?

[Pakaku]

Yeah, a status proc can't really do much if the enemy it's applied to is dead. Gas is the one exception since it creates a lingering gas cloud.

I think the distinction matters more with the weapon type. If your weapon has a slow fire rate, it isn't going to apply as many procs per second, so in that case I think it's better to focus on the elemental type of your raw damage. If you have high fire rate, you'll probably want to focus on status chance in order to stack or refresh procs, and maybe consider different elemental types. Even if the enemies die quickly, it's easier to just build for a weapon's strengths in any case

[Tiltskillet]

34 minutes ago, _Anise_ said:

tldr: does it ever make sense to stack the bigger element mods that come without status to just melt enemies harder instantly than running lower stats +statis just for the procs?

Yes. Sometimes  targets die faster with direct damage.   Which is very often the case with weak enemies.  Corrosive against Infested, for instance.   It's very strong to most of the only units that are remotely durable, and its armor strip effect doesn't apply to nearly any of them outside of Deimos.  So Corrosive damage = great, Corrosive proc = meh.  Also sometimes Toxin on Corpus.  Toxin inherently pierces shields, so if you only have room for one Toxin mod, the pure damage mod can be better.  Even more so if it's Primed Fever Strike.  However Toxin procs catch up very fast, especially with a Bane mod.  So against tougher enemies, the status mod can be better. 

Also with targets that are immune or have reduced vulnerability to status effects.  Alloy Armor bosses are a good example.  Radiation damage is ideal, but the procs don't really get you anything, and they'll have reduced vulnerability to other, incidental procs.

There are some niche situations too, like if you're just trying to finish a NW "Kill enemies with X element" challenge, one that doesn't include a status DoT.

[(NSW)Greybones]

Usually I’ll do high elemental damage for things like snipers or whenever I just want to hit a thing harder per bullet, particularly if I’m building a weapon to have a role against certain enemies within a faction.

Often I like building for status effects because they can act like micro modifiers to a fight, but there’s also plenty of times where pure elemental damage can be preferable, and then you start working with damage weighting and that can be fun to play around with 

Edited September 25, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones