What's the difference between a beam weapon and an automatic hitscan weapon in dps?

[Prof-Dante]

and why do beam weapons benefit better from fire rate buffs than any other hitscan automatic weapon?
Because I notice beam weapons have vastly faster dps...and I don't get why.

both types deal damage instantly and in a quick succession, if both have the same fire rate and damage, why does the beam one still win?

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Pretty vague unless you have two specific weapons in mind. 

Beams are usually status heavy and are moodded for crit anyways which is obviously a strong hybrid. 

[(PSN)Sentiel]

This depends on weapon by weapon case.

In my experience, most beam weapons tend to have fire rate around 12 and most full auto hitscan weapons around 9. Naturally, the higher the base value the bigger the benefit from mods.

Beam weapons need to ramp up the damage, similarly to weapons like Soma or Gorgon, where it takes about a second for them to reach their full damage you see on the missing screen.

Beam weapons are usually hybrid, so they have both CC and SC but more often than not weight towards SC. Full auto hitscan weapons usually have more SC then CC, but they also usually have higher base damage when compared to beam weapons.

Lastly, beam weapons usually have some sort of gimmick, like spreading, AoE, chaining, etc, so they often hit multiple enemies.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

beams used to only be able to deal damage per second, so they were really weak. then DE changed how beam damage calculation works, and weapons like the Flux Rifle saw a huge boost in overall power, but generally speaking, an automatic weapon with a high enough fire rate and zero or near-zero recoil can do the same thigns a beam weapon can, except for special cases like chaining effects. 

I just wish that beam abilities like Spectral Scream, Sol Gate and Fusion Strike would be given this method as well.. Qorvex already has it on his 4, so it's all the more jarring to not see it on other frames.

[Prof-Dante]

5 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

beams used to only be able to deal damage per second, so they were really weak. then DE changed how beam damage calculation works, and weapons like the Flux Rifle saw a huge boost in overall power, but generally speaking, an automatic weapon with a high enough fire rate and zero or near-zero recoil can do the same thigns a beam weapon can, except for special cases like chaining effects. 

I just wish that beam abilities like Spectral Scream, Sol Gate and Fusion Strike would be given this method as well.. Qorvex already has it on his 4, so it's all the more jarring to not see it on other frames.

 

5 hours ago, (PSN)Sentiel said:

This depends on weapon by weapon case.

In my experience, most beam weapons tend to have fire rate around 12 and most full auto hitscan weapons around 9. Naturally, the higher the base value the bigger the benefit from mods.

Beam weapons need to ramp up the damage, similarly to weapons like Soma or Gorgon, where it takes about a second for them to reach their full damage you see on the missing screen.

Beam weapons are usually hybrid, so they have both CC and SC but more often than not weight towards SC. Full auto hitscan weapons usually have more SC then CC, but they also usually have higher base damage when compared to beam weapons.

Lastly, beam weapons usually have some sort of gimmick, like spreading, AoE, chaining, etc, so they often hit multiple enemies.

 

6 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Pretty vague unless you have two specific weapons in mind. 

Beams are usually status heavy and are moodded for crit anyways which is obviously a strong hybrid. 

ok thanks all, it seems that beam weapons benefit better from fire rate mods and buffs due to their much higher base damage per second on contact, my testing was burston prime incarnon mode and torid incarnon mode, on a single target, I forgot to realize that the torid incarnon has a much higher rate of fire than the fromer, that's why it was out dpsing 

[ECCHOSIERRA]

8 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

and why do beam weapons benefit better from fire rate buffs than any other hitscan automatic weapon?
Because I notice beam weapons have vastly faster dps...and I don't get why.

both types deal damage instantly and in a quick succession, if both have the same fire rate and damage, why does the beam one still win?

I mean kinda depends on what beam weapon we're comparing to what full auto hitscan weapon but beam weapons generally dont have any recoil at all so its gonna feel like straight up "more DPS with the only downside being having to reload more often".

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Could you also be referring to the ramp up mechanic? I can't recall the exact specifics as far as with every beam type, how universal such numbers are, right now. Or how fire rate might affect it, but there is a sweet spot period after triggering where damage ramps up to maximum. Then after you stop firing it for a period, its damage lowers upon trigger/fire, until it ramps back up again. Its not a very long ramp up time, but its different to most hit scan weapons. Though hit scans with spool mechanics can have a similar principle (and can also benefit relatively more from fire rate buffs because of this)

Also like others are saying, depends on the weapons referred to. 

I use to feel the opposite for a while. That beam weapons were inconsistent in practice against a lot of harder enemies, because certain hit scan weapons felt like they had more oomph (well slower firing, high damage hit scan like certain shotguns and snipers), but it was more so the ramp up mechanic made it feel like there was this slight, weird delay, where the first enemy should have been dead, but wasn't. Then I learned about the ramp up mechanic and other advantages beams have (and some other downsides), or just general mechanics.

[Hayrack]

If not outdated, from Wiki about Continuous Weapon category:

"Multishot bonuses do not apply additional instances of damage. Instead, it provides a chance to roll bonus damage in multiples of itself, similar to how Critical Hits function. However, even though additional damage instances aren't added, Status Chance per tick will also increase linearly with Multishot bonuses"

Math people explain, please, I have no idea if that means CW can potentialy do more damage per hit.

[Birdframe_Prime]

In terms of mechanics, it's a subtle difference, but an important one.

Hitscan is simple to understand, you point, click and if your cross-hair is over the enemy it hits them. Each instance of damage is distinct and can calculate multishot as if it was a second bullet fired at the same time (which is what makes multi-shot powerful on single-shot weapons, but weird on pellet weapons).

Beams, however, generate a semi-physical projected object, which detects and contacts the enemy hitbox. If you use something like the Furis Incarnon, which generates a cone-of-effect, this means that one instance of ammunition usage can contact multiple enemies. The same with something like the Tenet Cycron and Kuva Nukor, where if they contact an enemy hitbox, they chain on with the same instance of ammo usage.

There is, apparently, some hidden tech to this with beams in that, if they have punch-through, a ragdoll on enemies (such as the Lifted status, or a CC like Vauban's Vortex, Zephyr's Airburst, Yareli's Riptide and so on) can actually cause a beam weapon to contact multiple hitboxes on the same enemy, such as arms, torso and head, vastly increasing the damage dealt as it registers all of them as separate hits for damage. But that's inconsistent, as far as I've seen.

This is also why the Multishot bonus isn't the same on beams, because the game won't generate a second object of effect, like a cone, it'll just calculate the damage dealt as a multiple of the original, such as a 2x bonus to damage after Crit calculations have been done for the base and a 2x Status chance after the total calculation for the base, which is why the damage per tick can seem so high with beams compared to hitscan. (This is especially good on weapons that exploit the Heat Inherit function.)

For some weapons, like the Synapse, this doesn't seem to have much of a difference between it and a hitscan weapon. For others, like the Ignis Wraith, this can have a large difference.

[Nira]

I'm glad to see some beam weapons getting some love these days, most notably with the augments for Ocucor and Catabolyst. Damn can those things slap now!

[SneakyErvin]

Not sure if mentioned yet but a big difference between hitscan and beam weapons is that ammo drain is lower (0.5) on beam weapons, or on most atleast. This is likely due to the need for damage to ramp up before dealing maximum damage.

[Tiltskillet]

12 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

my testing was burston prime incarnon mode and torid incarnon mode, on a single target,

If you had multishot in your comparison, Incarnon Burston's radial damage wouldn't have benefited at all.   Incarnon Torid also apparently has an issue with multishot, but not in a way that would affect its output if you were directly hitting a single target with its beam.

For reference:

 

[TARINunit9]

20 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

Because I notice beam weapons have vastly faster dps...and I don't get why.

 

9 hours ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Could you also be referring to the ramp up mechanic?

Beam weapons have a hidden stat, one that slightlyconfuzzled was trying to remember: double damage after about 0.8 seconds of consecutive hits

[VibingCat]

When it comes to beams, multishot affects damage over time quadratically. which explains why Furis incarnon, Torid incarnon and Phantasma Prime deal so much status damage. You should always have a fire rate buff on weapons unless your magazine is too low.